


There's No Better Love

by madneto



Category: X-Men (Movieverse)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-09-08
Updated: 2017-02-21
Packaged: 2018-08-13 19:58:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 26
Words: 53,824
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7984276
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/madneto/pseuds/madneto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of Cherik fics from my tumblr that don't belong in other collections! Specific warnings/ratings at the beginning of each chapter and an updated list of new fic in the summary.</p><p>NEW<br/>22 - Paging Dr. Troll (Rating: T; Tags: Character: Scott Summers, crack, Modern AU: Still Have Powers, Doctor AU)<br/>23 - Too Much Corn Pollen (Rating: G; Tags: Mutant Road Trip, sick fic, Calm Down Erik)<br/>24 - Puppy (And Kitty) Love (Rating: T; Tags: Modern AU: Still Have Powers, domesticity, getting together)<br/>25 - Reunited (Rating: G; Tags: Modern AU: No Powers, fluff, reunions, established relationship)<br/>26 - Poli Sci Romance (Rating: G; Tags: Character: Raven Darkholme, Modern AU: Still Have Powers, college AU, fluff, pining)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Welcome Home

**Author's Note:**

> My first ever anon prompt fill: Erik waits for Charles to return to Charles’s room but fell asleep on Charles’s not long enough sofa with Charles’s thesis covering his face LOL.
> 
> Rating: G  
> Tags: Fluff, slice of life

Charles was supposed to be home an hour ago. He had been gone at a conference on the other side of the country for a whole week, and while he had called Erik every night, and texted him throughout the day, Erik missed him so much it was a little pathetic. So, in a rare fit of romanticism and upset at being unable to pick Charles up directly from the airport because of work, Erik had decided to drop by Charles’s flat on the east side of campus with surprise takeout from their favourite Chinese place and a new box of condoms (subtlety was never his forte). But when he was halfway to the apartment, takeout and drugstore bag in hand, his phone buzzed with a call from Charles. Smiling, he answered. 

“Hello?”

“Hello, darling,” Charles said, sounding a little haggard, which instantly made Erik’s smile slip from his face. “Minor change of plans…”

Charles’s flight had been cancelled, and he’d just spent the past half-hour trying to get switched onto another flight for New York from Seattle. 

“I’ll be home tonight, but it’ll be late. Probably around eleven. I’m so sorry.”

“Its fine,” Erik answered automatically. He was only a little put-out, really. He was happier that Charles would be getting back tonight at all. They could always re-heat the lo mein, anyway. “I was planning on surprising you, though.”

Erik could hear Charles’s smile through his reply. “Oh how sweet of you, Erik. I wish I could be there sooner. Just go to the flat anyway; I want to see you first thing when I get back.”

“Yes, dear,” Erik said even as he climbed the stairs of Charles’s apartment building and used the slightest push of his power to unlock the door.

Charles’s laugh was interrupted by the crackle of a loudspeaker over his end.

“Oh, damn, Erik, I’ve got to go. The plane is boarding.”

“Right,” Erik replied, going into the kitchen and setting his bags on the table covered with mail and other papers. “Have a safe flight.”

“I will. I love you.”

“I love you too.”

“I’ll see you soon, darling.” And with that the call disconnected. Erik slipped his phone back into his pocket and decided to busy himself by tucking into his portion of the lo mein. No need to waste perfectly good Chinese.

Erik was exhausted after a grueling morning at his internship. It had been full of boring meetings about his evil boss’ plans for his latest building, Shaw Tower, and had led to hours of work in the afternoon drawing up the plans for said monstrosity. He stared off into space aimlessly as he chewed, feeling his eyelids get heavier and heavier. Angrily, he shook himself. He needed to stay awake to see Charles. 

Finishing his food, he closed up the box again and put it in the fridge, tossing away the disposable wooden chopsticks he had been using in the garbage under the sink. Bored, he went into the living room and sat down on Charles’s ratty old couch.

The thing was ancient, and insanely uncomfortable. Springs stuck into awkward places everywhere you sat, and there were a few stains that Erik could only hope were from the myriad of tea glasses that usually littered the coffee table. Charles, of course, was in love with it, always saying that it was a relic of his college days that held many precious memories, and that if Erik tried to get rid of it when his lease was up at the end of the month and he moved in, he had another thing coming. Erik was, therefore, learning to love it begrudgingly. 

Erik shifted, trying avoid the worst of the intrusive springs. Charles’s coffee table, much like his kitchen table, was a mess. The man needed a better organizing system. Erik leaned forward and examined the different papers scattered across its surface. There was more mail; a postcard from Charles’s sister, Raven, who was studying abroad as an undergrad in France. Half-graded papers from the beginning genetics class Charles TA'ed for were also scattered about, along with some books that Charles seemed to be using for checking references. 

What caught Erik’s eye, however, was the black-bound volume set off to the side and almost covered by magazines. The only thing that was visible was the name on the front: Charles Xavier. Erik pulled it out from underneath the stack of magazines and saw, with a grin, that it was Charles’s thesis. He had probably only recently gotten around to binding it. 

Erik hadn’t heard Charles talk about his thesis very much. He knew that it was about mutation, specifically of the X gene that every mutant had. He also knew that, unfortunately, there wasn’t a lot of research on the subject, which Charles found intensely frustrating (“Just because it only occurs in a minority of the population doesn’t mean its not important!”). Charles tended to want to avoid talking about his thesis, however. Erik suspected he was a little sick of thinking about it, having been working on the paper for so long, but he was intrigued. That, and he had to stay awake. 

So, laying back into the embrace of the ratty old sofa and tucking his long legs up uncomfortably close to his body so they would fit, he flipped open to the first page of Charles’s thesis and began to read.  _To homo neaderthalantis his cousin homo sapiens was an aberration…_

*

 _  
_The first thing Charles saw when he dragged himself into his apartment was Erik, asleep and scrunched up on his couch. Well, Charles could only assume he was sleeping from the steady rise and fall of his diaphragm and the lazy flutter of his thoughts; Erik’s face was covered by his own newly-bound thesis.

Charles smiled and set down his duffle bag and briefcase quietly to walk over to his slumbering boyfriend. Crouching, he carefully moved the book out of the way and set it on the coffee table behind him. Sure enough, when he turned back, Erik’s eyes were closed, his mouth slightly open as he breathed lightly through parted lips. He looked so sweet and peaceful that Charles couldn’t resist leaning forward and pressing a kiss to his stubbled cheek. Immediately, Erik stirred, eyes blinking open.

“Hi,” Charles beamed. 

Erik smiled blearily back. “Hi,” he replied before reaching out and pulling Charles towards him for a more thorough homecoming.


	2. Over Easy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Canon compliant, fluff, first kiss

The scent of sizzling sausages and sputtering eggs permeated the kitchen. It was a little past seven and the sun was already bright over the trees on the east side of the forested grounds. Erik was relatively new to the whole cooking thing, having spent most of his adult life on the move, killing Nazis, and searching for his creator. However, soon after moving into Westchester and attempting to eat Raven’s lasagna (burned on the outside and cold on the inside), it had become apparent they were going to need a new cook.

Erik had volunteered first, wanting to be helpful and prove he was self-reliant in the face of Charles’s previously unsuspected now painfully evident fortune. Surprisingly, upon cooking breakfast the second day of their stay in Westchester, Erik found he took to cooking like a fish to water. He was also the best cook in the house by far, a fact he took great pride in, so the others were happy to let him stay on as head chef.

It was their third day at the mansion now, but Erik already had a routine. Every morning he would wake up at six, pull on his gray tracksuit and run a circuit of the mansion’s grounds, the equivalent of three miles as Charles had told him when they first arrived. After his jog, he would go back to the mansion, take a quick shower, get dressed, then go down to fix breakfast before everyone else straggled into the kitchen closer to eight.  

Yesterday Charles had joined him, chopping up apples and plucking grapes from their stems at Erik’s instruction to make a fruit salad. A part of Erik hoped he would find his friend waiting for him in the kitchen again this morning with a drowsy, but dazzling smile. For better or worse, however, when Erik entered the kitchen after his run, there had been no sleepy telepath waiting for him. Erik tamped down his disappointment as best he could and got to work anyway. 

Cooking wasn’t Charles’s job after all, Erik reasoned as he flipped the sausages to brown on their other sides. Come to think of it, Charles had probably only joined him yesterday to make sure he was finding his way around the kitchen alright. No matter that Erik could sense where all the pots and knives and silverware were kept, that might not have automatically occurred to Charles. 

His joining Erik certainly wasn’t due to the way his eyes seemed to linger on Erik even when everyone else was in the room, or how his touch stayed on Erik’s skin after a thousand tiny, outwardly innocent touches throughout the day. And it most certainly didn’t have anything to do with the way they both loitered in the hallway that separated their rooms by a mere seven feet before finally saying goodnight after chess each evening.

Erik summoned a serving platter from cupboard on the other side of the room with a brush of his power and mechanically dumped the finished eggs into it. Returning the skillet to the stove, he cracked several more eggs and let them begin bubbling as he moved the serving platter to the counter top and covered its contents to keep the heat from escaping. He told himself he was being stupid and began unwrapping bread to put into the toaster.

 _::Not stupid_.:: Charles’s voice danced through Erik’s mind, sudden, amused, sleepy, and undoubtedly pleased. Erik almost knocked the serving platter from the counter, stopping himself just in time.

 _::I apologize, but you were thinking rather loudly and I couldn’t help overhearing,::_ Charles went on. :: _I’ll be down in a minute. I think perhaps we have something to discuss, yes?_  ::

Erik stood stock-still, unable to think or move from his shock. _Yes_ , he thought finally. There was a feeling like a caress across his thoughts and Charles’s presence was gone.

For a moment, Erik was frozen, not really sure what he should do. Shaking himself, he went back to the eggs, scrambling them around in the pan and silently berating himself. There was no need to panic. Besides, he needed to focus or he’d burn the food. By sheer will power, he forced his heartbeat back to normal and made his mind calm, like slow waves across a shore. He had just slipped the sausages into the serving platter alongside the cooked eggs when he heard the door of the kitchen open and shut quietly. 

Erik was mid-turn when Charles’s arms closed about his torso, pulling him in close while Erik spun the rest of the way around. The embrace was awkward at first, Charles’s nose smashed uncomfortably against Erik’s collarbone, but neither of them seemed to care. They didn’t have much time to be uncomfortable anyway, since almost as soon as Charles was in his arms, Erik tangled his hands in the telepath’s hair, using the grip to tip his head back. Quickly, Erik brought their lips together for a searing kiss. 

Charles responded enthusiastically, going on his tip-toes and arching up against Erik to deepen the kiss. He held Erik delicately in place by the back of his neck. When they pulled apart some minutes later, Charles was smiling brilliantly. He had apparently come straight from his bed, not even bothering to change out of his pajamas or run a brush through his hair, the end result being that he looked twice as rumpled from Erik’s hands.

“Good morning,” he said, running a lazy hand through the short hair at the base Erik’s skull.

“’Morning,” Erik replied, feeling his own grin slide into place.

“You should unwittingly project more often,” Charles mused. “If I’d have known you felt this way this would have happened a lot sooner.” 

“Then I’m sorry I ever asked you to stay out of my head,” Erik answered, bending down for another kiss.

“Wow, this smells great Eri-agh. Okay.”

Erik immediately jerked away from Charles’s lips, the two of them spinning around to see Sean standing in his striped pajama bottoms and bright orange t-shirt. He was trying to hide a smirk behind one of his hands with very little success. 

“Right then. I’ll just. Go change or something. Leave you two alone,” he said, sidling conspicuously out of the doorway.

Erik and Charles watched him go, not bothering to drop their arms or step away from each other. When Charles turned back to Erik, he was beaming again.

“I guess the cat’s out of the bag now,” Erik said, dropping a quick kiss to Charles’s lips once more.

“Mmm.” Charles hummed happily against Erik’s mouth. “Too bad. Your eggs are burning, by the way.”

Erik released a laughing Charles like he was on fire. 


	3. There Will Be Hickeys

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Warnings: Fluff, public making out, ficlet, Alternate Universe: Modern, Alternate Universe: No Powers

“Erik it’s starting.” 

“Mmmm.”

Charles sighed quietly, trying to sound exasperated, but with Erik sucking at that spot on his neck it came out more like a stifled whimper. He could feel Erik’s lips quirking up against his skin, the cheeky bastard. Despite his better judgment, Charles pushed the armrest- the only thing keeping Erik from plastering himself up against Charles’ side - up and out of the way. 

“This is completely inappropriate,” he whispered, trying to ignore the breathiness creeping into his voice, yet still he was unable to pull away from Erik’s talented mouth. “During the previews was fine but… If someone sees us - or hears us, God, Erik shhh you never sound like that when we’re at home-”

“First of all,” Erik said, his voice hushed as he kissed his way up Charles’ neck to his ear so the other could hear him more easily, “no one’s going to see us or hear us. The theatre’s huge, there are only five other people in it, and we’re right at the back. Second of all-” he nipped lightly at Charles’ earlobe “-you’re the one who dragged me to this movie. You can at least let me enjoy it.”

“I really don’t think this is the way Paul Thomas Anderson intended for-” Erik rolled his hips against Charles. The angle was a little awkward, but all the same, Charles had to bite back a hiss. Goddamn it why was the beginning of this movie so quiet? He’d probably know if he was actually paying attention… 

Cursing inwardly, Charles grabbed Erik away from where he was sucking a mark onto his collarbone, bringing him up for a bruising - but thankfully silent - kiss. “You owe me twenty bucks for the tickets,” he breathed, sliding himself onto Erik’s lap as noiselessly as he could before leaning down to kiss that stupid smirk off his boyfriend’s face.


	4. My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Cherik, original character, crack, Alternate Universe: Modern, Alternate Universe: No Powers

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Based on the song "My Girlfriend Who Lives in Canada" from Avenue Q

_This isn’t a date, this isn’t a date, this isn’t a date_ , Erik told himself over and over as he watched Charles ordering another drink while casually flirting with the pretty blonde bartender. 

“Keep my spot warm,” he’d said cheekily moments before, tossing Erik a smile before leaving their table and slinking over to the counter. The minx.

Erik frowned into his beer, wondering why he even bothered to come out with Charles all the time when they weren’t dating, and he never seemed to pick up anyone else anyway. Not that he would ever  _want_ anyone else, of course, but it would be nice to appreciated once and a while beyond the once-overs he often got.

“You’re very attractive, Erik,” Charles had told him once, making Erik’s heart stop momentarily, until the other man had continued. “But it’s like you’ve got this constant unhappy look on your face. It makes you seem unapproachable.”

 _Why did **you** approach me then?_  Erik had wanted to ask. But of course, he hadn’t. Charles flirted with everyone but him. It was obvious there was nothing more than platonic feelings between them, at least from Charles’ side of the relationship. 

“Long day?” A voice suddenly broke Erik out of his revere. There was a man hovering next to Charles’ chair on the other side of the high table. He was smiling, too. Why was he smiling? 

Erik’s frown deepened. “Long night,” he grunted in response. 

The man’s smile widened. “Oh dear,” he said, fiddling with the back of Charles’ chair, “here I was thinking the night was young.”

Confused, Erik glanced at the clock behind the bar, and in the process caught sight of Charles, head tossed back as he laughed at something the bartender had said. Something probably really _stupid_. Charles never laughed like that at anything Erik said. The thought made his stomach sink uncomfortably.

“It’s eleven,” he said finally, turning back to his beer and trying not to think about the flush on Charles’ face. 

The man across from him laughed. “Fair enough.” He slid into Charles’ chair before Erik could protest, although, to be honest, Erik was feeling a little spiteful; he wouldn’t have done much to stop the man anyway. “My name’s Dan. What’s yours?”

“Erik,” Erik answered, holding out a hand for Dan to shake, which he did, his fingers lingering just a bit too long. Suddenly Erik felt uncomfortable. Perhaps just being noticed from afar was enough for him after all. He pulled away, sinking back against his chair.

“So, are you here with someone?” Dan asked.

He was tall; almost as tall as Erik, with dark brown hair and blue eyes, like Charles. But somehow, his eyes didn’t have that same spark to them that Charles’ did; lively and bright and intelligent, even in the worst circumstances. His hair wasn’t like Charles’ either; just a bit too short for Erik’s tastes, and without the waves that always flopped into Charles’ eyes, making him chuckle and push them out of the way, vowing to get a haircut. He didn’t have a single grey hair either; Erik liked the few light strands that had begun to streak Charles’ hair. They were dignified.

Dan was speaking again, shifting a bit uncomfortably at Erik’s silence. “I saw you come in with your friend, but he seemed… otherwise occupied.”

“No, he is,” Erik agreed icily, thinking wildly about how he was supposed to get out of this situation when Charles was such as lush that Erik couldn’t even _pretend_ they were dating. 

Dan was smiling again, though, obviously ready to start hitting even harder on Erik, when Erik suddenly spluttered, “I have a girlfriend, though.”

“Oh.” Dan’s face fell, and he twirled his glass, taken back. “Is she here too?”

“She, uh…” Erik thought quickly. “She lives in Canada.”

“Canada. Wow." 

"Her name is Alberta,” Erik continued, slightly horrified at the invention quickly spiraling out of his control, even as he tried to stop himself. “She lives in Vancouver.”

Dan nodded awkwardly. “It must be difficult to be so far away.”

“We e-mail. We’re in love.” Erik coughed as Dan raised his eyebrows. “I’m going to visit her soon, in Alber-” _shit_ “I mean, Vancouver.”

“What about Vancouver?" 

Erik’s heart thudded as he turned to see Charles, brow furrowed slightly as he looked from Erik to Dan. 

"Erik was just telling me about his girlfriend,” Dan answered when Erik didn’t speak. “She lives in Canada.”

Charles’ face fell for a fraction of a second, so quickly Erik wouldn’t have noticed if he didn’t know him so well, and then he was smiling. “Oh, Emma? Yes, the climate up there does suit her. Although I didn’t know you two had started dating.” The tone in Charles’ voice was difficult to place. Was he… was he _upset?_

“Emma?” Dan asked, thoroughly confused, watching Erik stare at his friend with an expression one might wear if they’d just been hit over the head with a hammer. “I thought her name was Alberta.” Neither of the other men replied, however, lost in their own non-verbal conversation. Finally, he decided this persuit was definitely not worth it, no matter how good Erik’s cheekbones were. “Well, um. I think my friend’s calling me so…” He trailed off, all too happy to leave.

Erik barely noticed Dan standing up and drifting away, too busy studying Charles’ face. The other man’s blush spread across his cheeks to his ears, despite the way he was frowning back at Erik. He huffed suddenly, shaking himself as he returned to his seat, oozing false nonchalance. 

“Really, Erik,” he said, looking determinedly at his drink, “you should have told me you two were dating. I would have-”

“We’re not,” Erik said firmly. “We are definitely, _definitely_ , not dating. Ever. Period.”

Charles let out a forced chuckle, still not meeting Erik’s eye. “That guy seemed to think-”

“I would never date him either,” Erik continued, taking a deep, bracing breath before reaching across the table, covering Charles’ hand with his own. “He’s not you.”

Everything was deathly silent for a moment, the noise of the bar blocked out by Erik’s rapidly thumping heart. After what seemed an eternity, Charles let out a quiet breath, almost like a laugh. Erik felt his heart constrict almost painfully as Charles finally looked up, biting his lip and grinning. He turned his hand over, fingers tangling easily with Erik’s. 

“Not me, huh?” he repeated softly.

Erik swallowed. “Never.”

And Charles did laugh at that, real, and loud, and so, so happy. Erik couldn’t help but join him. When they stopped, Charles was still smiling brilliantly at him, that beautiful spark shining in his impossibly blue eyes. 

“What do you say we get out of here?" 

Erik’s smiled so wide it made his face hurt. "I thought you’d never ask.”


	5. Apprenticeship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Alternate Universe: Still Have Powers, Alternate Universe: Steampunk

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From aria-brook's prompt: "In which Charles is apprenticed to the infamous contemporary sculptor Erik Lehnsherr, a man who can craft life out of a few silver coins and rusty nails (steampunk AU maybe?)"

The door to the dimly lit shop jangled as Charles stepped inside, the noise eerie when paired with the dark silhouettes of twisted metal sculptures. Even in the half-light, Charles could see some of the intricacies, could tell they were beautiful, and some of the tension knotting his stomach began to disperse.

Lehnsherr himself was an enigma as far as Charles knew, and these sculptures were certainly just as mystifying, but while Charles had heard only negative things in regards to the sculptor’s personality, his works were undoubtedly beautiful. Charles had seen a few before his mother died, when he was still living in the mansion; when he was still dragged to parties, shown off like a flashy piece of jewelry, and subsequently ignored by everyone except a few kind servants for most of the night.

Even then, when he’d been too young and confused to understand the meaning behind Kurt Marko’s thoughts and what they might mean for his own future, Charles had enjoyed the sculptures. There had been a lot of standing around by himself back then, listening to the timbre of the minds around him grow steadily more hazy with alcohol until a passing maid finally took pity on him and whisked him away to the kitchen. Before he was rescued, though, there had been a lot of staring about at the decorations.

Lehnsherr’s name was just beginning to become a topic of conversation towards the end of those days. He’d come from absolutely nowhere, an apprentice to some sculptor whose work was technically good but whose imagination in their work left something to be desired. Lehnsherr, on the other hand, was brilliant. Almost from the first piece it was obvious he was a natural, and critics were astounded that someone so young could possess so much talent.

Soon after he’d first heard Lehnsherr mentioned, however, his father had died, his mother had re-married, and with Kurt as the head of the house, there had been no more parties for Charles. That would have been a relief, if it had meant anything other than what followed.

But Charles didn’t like to think of those days if he didn’t have to, so he pushed those thoughts to the back of his mind and stepped closer to the nearest sculpture to examine it a little more easily. He was gone. He’d gotten out. He was safe. Now he just needed a job to provide for himself. He was so busy perusing the art that he didn’t notice he wasn’t alone until a voice sounded abruptly from the doorway.

“Did you not see the sign? We’re closed.”

Charles jumped and turned around. Standing in the doorway, face just visible from the light coming out of the back room, was a tall, stone-faced man. A leather apron was tied around his broad shoulders and cinched around a thin waist, and his hands were leaving dark smudges on the white cloth he was wiping them with. Charles stared for a moment, and when he didn’t respond, Lehnsherr clenched his jaw and took a step further into the room.

“Are you deaf _and_ blind? The shop is closed. Come back-”  
  
“I’m not here to buy anything,” Charles said, suddenly finding his voice. “I’m here about the ad you put in the paper. The apprenticeship position.” Lehnsherr frowned at him while he dug frantically in his pants pocket, coming up with the small clipping from last week’s Sunday Times. He brought it over to Lehnsherr, who had finished wiping his hands and had finally stepped all the way up behind the counter.

He looked down at the advertisement, then back up at Charles, considering him skeptically. “How old are you? Fifteen? Sixteen?”

“Eighteen,” Charles replied a little defiantly.

Lehnsherr raised an eyebrow. “And have you ever worked with anyone before?”

Charles shook his head. “Not technically. I had art lessons when I was still in school.”

As soon as the words left his mouth, Lehnsherr seemed to shut down again, pushing himself away from the counter with an eye roll and opening his mouth to throw Charles out, but Charles was determined.

“I’ve been sculpting for six years, now. I’ve worked with metal before, and I have experience welding. I’ve also worked with a kiln. I have to say I’m not much of a painter, but then again, I don’t see any wall art in your shop to begin with.”

That last part was a bit sharp, but Lehnsherr didn’t seem to mind. On the contrary, he paused, looking at Charles for what might as well have been the first time. He held his ground as those eyes – grey, Charles realized, or maybe blue, it was hard to tell in the light – traveled over him appraisingly, sizing him up.

A small part of him wondered what the other man was thinking, but he had long since learned to shield himself from other’s minds, and something told him that Lehnsherr would not be the sort of person who took kindly to telepaths dipping freely in and out of his thoughts.

After what seemed like an eternity, Lehnsherr finally spoke. “The shop opens at nine, so you’ll be here by eight. Dress to work,” he said shortly, before giving Charles a quick nod, then dipping back into the back room.

For a moment, all Charles could do was stand there in the dark shop, staring at the light in the doorway behind the counter and trying to process the interaction, if it could even count as that. Then, breathing out slowly and letting the last of the tension dissipate from his shoulders, he gave a quick nod, though Lehnsherr could not see it, and exited the shop. 


	6. Counterstrike

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Raiting: T  
> Tags: Alternate Universe: Still Have Powers, dark future, mentions of violence, captivity, sensory deprivation, Alex Summers, Armando Muñoz

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From an anon prompt "h/c with collars"

The man next to Erik was in bad shape, which was saying something. They’d been on the boat for almost two weeks already. Most people were getting stir-crazy from being chained in the hold like wild beasts. Erik couldn’t blame them. Just a few more days, he told himself. They needed to get just a little further out to sea, then it would be safe. He’d be able to slip off the inhibitor collars – his and everyone else’s – and they could take the ship. Sometimes, the rarity of metallokenisis was on their side.

This wasn’t his first rescue mission with the Brotherhood, but even though he’d been doing it for years, it never got any easier. Still, the reward was worth the suffering. Soon all these people would be safe on Genoshan soil, free to live and celebrate their mutations as they always should be able to do. Their country was small, it had to be, but it was the only place that had ever felt like home to Erik, and probably ever would.

There were a few people on the boat who made Erik’s job a little harder to deal with, who made him a little less patient. There was a boy in particular, chained two down from Erik, whose eyes were bloodshot and red-rimmed, and had been since the journey began. At night the boy across from him would hold his hand and try to talk to him, but it was of no use. Whenever Erik looked down the row to see him, head hung low and blond hair grimy from weeks without a bath, his heart clenched and he had to wrestle down his own anger, fighting with himself to keep the metal of the collars locked safe and secure.

But the man next to Erik was a different case altogether. It was if he’d gone numb. Erik had never seen anything like it before, and he’d been doing this job for quite a while. The man was completely closed into himself. He hadn’t spoken a word to anyone since they first got on the ship, not even acknowledging his name when it was called for roll, which earned him a punishing fist that split his cheek open. Still, after that, all he’d ever done was sit and stare at the wall across from him and Erik, unseeing.

The inhibitor collar around his neck had rubbed raw marks onto the skin around it – as Erik was sure his had done to him – and where it rested on his collarbones, which jutted out, skeleton-like. The marks were made even more prominent from the paleness of his skin, and there were dark circles under his eyes, which were huge and blue, but sunken. He looked almost like a walking corpse.

At first, Erik had ignored him, always keeping alert and planning, waiting for the day when he could begin passing the message that, yes, they were going to escape, and yes, they would be really, truly free. But, as time wore on and the man failed to show any signs of life, other than mechanically eating his small portion of bread in the morning and the evening and drinking his share of water, he began to get concerned. For a few days he’d held his tongue. Today, glancing surreptitiously to his right and seeing the man still staring at the wall blankly, he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Hey,” Erik whispered tentatively. There was no one sitting on the man’s other side, so there was no one else he could be talking to. Still, the man continued to stare straight ahead. Erik tried again. “Hey. You.” He nudged the man with his elbow.

For a long moment, there was no change. Erik’s heart began to pound in his chest. Maybe there really was something wrong with him. Then, slowly, the man blinked. He sucked in a deep breath through his nose. He turned until his eyes locked onto Erik’s and blinked again, but said nothing. His lips were red and raw. Erik wondered if he even could speak.

“Hey,” he said, smiling gently, hoping it was reassuring. He’d been told his smile was more disconcerting than anything else. “Are you alright?”

Nothing.

“It’s gonna be alright,” Erik continued scooting a little closer so he could lower his voice while still being able to be heard over the quiet rumble of the other prisoner’s voices and the rolling waves.

Cautiously, as if approaching a wounded animal, he reached out and covered the man’s hand with his own where it was resting on the scrubbed wood in between them. At the touch, the man started, and at first Erik was afraid he’d frightened him, but as he went to withdraw his hand, the man suddenly turned his palm over and gripped Erik’s tightly back.

Erik smiled again, encouraging. “I’m going to get us out of here,” he whispered. “I promise.”

Finally, the words seemed to register with the man. Erik wished he could remember his name. It had started with a C, hadn’t it? Or a K? There had been so many names they’d called that day, including the pseudonym - Max - that Erik had used this time.

Whatever his name was, Erik’s words made his hold on Erik’s hand tighten, almost to the point of pain, but Erik didn’t let go. On the contrary, he leaned in even closer, ducking down so the man didn’t have to crane his neck to look up at him with those luminous eyes. “The collars don’t work on me,” he admitted. “In just a few days, I’ll take them all off, and we can escape. There’s a place I’m going to take you.”

“Genosha?” The man’s voice was dry and cracked like his lips, but a part of Erik still sagged with relief. Maybe the man wasn’t as far gone as Erik had thought.

“Yes.” Erik nodded. “Genosha. I’ll take us all there. I promise.”

The words took a second to process, the man freezing in disbelief at first, but after a moment, he took another sharper breath. Then the floodgates opened. The man almost seemed surprised at his own reaction, blinking confusedly as the first few tears spilled down his cheeks, but soon he was gasping and shaking with what Erik hoped was relief. Erik was certainly feeling better; even this outburst was light-years better than how the man had been before.

Furtively, Erik glanced around to make sure no guards had wandered close by as he and the man were talking, but they were still alone, at least for the time being. So, very gently, he scooted closer and dropped the man’s hand in favor of looping an arm around his shoulder, pulling him close. The man seemed to relish the physical contact, leaning unabashedly against Erik’s side, turning his head into Erik’s chest so tears dampened his shirt as the man continued to sob.

“Shhh, it’s alright,” Erik soothed, running a hand up and down the man’s arm as best he could with the shackles. “I’m Erik. What’s your name?”

The man sniffed, then breathed out steadily through his mouth in an attempt to calm himself. “Charles,” he croaked. “Charles Xavier.”

“Charles,” Erik repeated. “What’s your mutation?”

Charles paused, as if unsure that Erik could be trusted, but after a moment seemed to deem it safe. “Telepath,” he mumbled, his words muffled by Erik’s shirt.

Well, that explained some things.

“That’s amazing,” Erik whispered, smiling genuinely this time. “Now, Charles, I said I’d get you out of here, and I will, but I need you to stay with me, okay?”

“I will,” Charles replied immediately. He’d stopped crying, but he still hadn’t moved away. Something about the physical contact must be grounding him in the absence of his powers, and Erik found he didn’t mind the contact at all either. “Thank you, my friend. I was… Everything's so quiet. I don’t know how I… thank you.” He finished, at a loss for words.

“No need to thank me,” Erik answered, relaxing a little further against the uncomfortable wall of the ship. “Get some sleep. I’ll wake you up when they come around for dinner.”

That was all the prompting Charles needed, apparently, because he shifted closer and settled in against Erik’s chest, and soon, much to Erik’s relief, he had drifted off into what seemed to be a contented sleep. 


	7. To Fly in the Face of Convention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Alternate Universe: Regency, Alternate Universe: No Powers, Mentions of Charles/Other, Kissing, Period-appropriate internalized homophobia (mild)

Erik didn’t mean for this to happen, he mused as he sat in an armchair close to the fireplace, a chessboard and Charles’ figure half-illuminated by the fire and a nearby oil lamp. Ever since he’d first seen Charles, first talked to him, ever since he’d gotten that first spark of connection, he’d decided to try and keep his distance. Besides the idea of a relationship being utterly impossible, (and at least from Charles’ end, improbable), Charles was with someone. He was happy. 

Or at least he appeared to be. By the time Charles met Erik he’d been courting Gabrielle for almost a year. That was definitely enough time to expect a proposal any day, especially in the circles Charles and Gabrielle’s families moved in; slightly above the level of wealth Erik had been born into. Long courtships weren’t unheard of, but no real commitment after a year? Even Erik, champion of isolation, had been a little surprised when he’d heard that.

Gabrielle had been dropping hints about it, Charles confided to Erik several months into their friendship, when, after much wheedling, he’d managed to convince Erik to come and stay with him for a weekend at his manor in the countryside near Oxford. Her nagging had been driving him up the wall, although exactly why, Charles had never quite elaborated.

“We can barely have a conversation without her bringing up the latest engagement she’s heard of, or some wedding she’s gotten a letter about from her cousin in London. It’s absolutely maddening,” he’d said, frowning down at the chessboard so Erik couldn’t make out the tempestuous look in those blue eyes. When he finally looked up at Erik again, he was smiling, even if the expression looked a little fixed.

Erik cleared his throat, then examined the board. He hadn’t actually seen which piece Charles was moving, or where to. He’d been too distracted by… things that should not have been distracting him.

“I didn’t expect you to fly in the face of convention so remorselessly, Charles,” Erik teased, furrowing his brow for a moment before moving a pawn. The game was undoubtedly going to go to Charles this time, but the week was young. Erik had plenty of time to win back his dignity.

“Didn’t you?” Charles’ voice was low, his tone full of something Erik couldn’t quite discern, or rather, was afraid he was incorrect in discerning. He looked up to see Charles watching him steadily, a glint of something like longing in his eye.

Charles sat back in his chair, a slight smile tugging at those red, red lips. He looked ready to laugh off what he’d just said if Erik took it wrong. Erik knew that expression. He’d seen a few times, playing just behind Charles’ eyes in those weak moments when he’d thought that just _maybe_ Charles felt the same way… He’d seen it on his own face in the mirror somtimes.

But now, seeing it on Charles’ face, all Erik could do was sit there and stare, his mouth going dry.

The silence had stretched on for too long, though, and by the time Erik remembered he needed to speak, the spark in Charles’ eye was fading, and his grin became even more affected. He opened his mouth, seemingly to laugh, but Erik cut him off.

“No,” he said quietly. “Don’t. Please.”

Instantly, the smile fell from Charles’ face. The air between them felt like it had been charged with some kind of unseen energy, and the pop and crackle of the fire was the only noise in the room besides Erik’s fastidiously beating heart pounding in his ears. Charles’ chest was rising and falling with forced steadiness as he watched Erik carefully.

“What do you mean, Erik?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper, and raspy with breath and something else. He shifted forward a little in his seat.

“You know what I mean,” Erik replied a little shortly.

Charles paused for another long moment, his eyes scanning Erik’s face, his chest, further down. He wetted his lips. “No, I’m not sure I do.”

“Oh for God’s–" Erik snarled, then cut himself off in favor of launching across the remaining distance to kiss Charles hard and gracelessly on the mouth.

Charles let out a little noise of surprise, but before Erik could become too horrified and pull away, he felt strong hands fisting the fabric of his vest and the shirt underneath, tugging him closer as Charles opened his mouth with another noise, this time of unmistakable approval.

The angle was awkward for the both of them, so Erik allowed himself to be guided down onto the floor in front of Charles’ chair so they could stay together, growing steadily more confident in their kisses. It was only when Charles licked slowly at Erik’s bottom lip, eliciting a groan, that they finally pulled away, Charles laughing slightly. Erik’s eyes flickered open, and he looked up to meet Charles’ gaze. The look he saw shining down at him made his pulse race impossibly faster.

“I’m sorry to have kept you up so late after supper,” Charles began coyly, “when you have spent half the day traveling to see me. Surely you must be ready for bed?”

Erik grinned wolfishly up at him. “You are such a gracious host, Master Xavier. But I’m afraid you will have to show me the way to my chamber,” he went on, leaning in to drop a kiss to Charles’ lips once more before trailing them down his neck, tugging at his cravat for better access. “It’s such a large” – kiss – “confusing” – kiss – “house. So many”- kiss – “nooks and” – kiss – “crannies to get” – kiss – “lost in.”

There was a snort of exasperation, and Erik only just had time to grin before Charles was standing up and stepping away, holding out a hand to help Erik to his feet.

“Erik,” he said shortly. “Upstairs. Now.”

Erik ducked his head, grinning. “Your wish is my command.” 


	8. Rage and Serenity

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Tags: Pre-slash, dark Charles, meet NOT-cute, (somewhat) XMFC canon-compliant

It had been a long and unproductive day, and Erik was starting to feel that if he didn’t get a drink he would vibrate out of his own skin, crawling as it was with restless agitation. His mind was hazy and distracted, too, thanks to the anger and the jet lag from his flight last night: Bangkok to London, a twelve hour trip, and Erik was now beginning to think it had all been for naught.

The Nazi guard he was currently tracking – a Felix Schultheiss – hadn’t been at the small London flat Erik’s informant promised he would find him in. When Erik asked the landlord where he was, she said she hadn’t seen him in a few days and wasn’t sure where he’d gone. Erik hadn’t even tried to feign politeness as he said goodbye and stormed out of the block of flats, shouldering his way through the after-dinner rush of commuters and tourists on the sidewalk outside.

He’d gone back to the hotel, and now had been spending the past half hour pacing around his room, trying to work out his next step; keep searching here in London, or fly back to Bangkok and strategically flay his informant alive until he got the _right_ information. It was a catch-22, he’d realized immediately and was coming to terms with slowly. If he left London now he could probably track his informant down before they’d gotten too far, as they’d undoubtedly ran the second Erik left their sight. However, leaving London meant the Schultheiss’ trail would go cold again. Erik had been tracking this man for almost a month. He was ready to finish the job.

Erik snarled down at the floor, sinking onto the bed, whose metal posts were vibrating slightly with Erik’s irritation, but he ignored them. His leg jumped as he thought frantically for one second more. Then, finally, he decided fuck it. There was no use forcing himself to make a decision right now when it might come back later to bite him in the ass. He needed that drink, so he’d go get it. There was a pub that looked suitable just a few blocks down from his hotel; small enough to not be terribly popular, but big enough he wasn’t liable to draw the attention of too many people.

Shrugging his long overcoat on over his button-down once more, he left his room, not bothering to take his key as he fused the lock shut on the way out with a quirk of his fingers.  The streets were happily much less crowded now, although not completely devoid of life of course; it was still too early for that. Still, when Erik sat down alone in a distant, dark corner of the pub with his pint, he was somehow feeling calmer, less hazy, even in the dim lighting. Away from the oppressiveness of his hotel room, he could finally think.

The beer was good. Erik had picked it at random, not being familiar with many of the names on the taps, and now sipping it slowly, he found pleasant surprise humming at the back of his mind. He glanced furtively around, mostly from force of habit. He’d been right; this place was perfect. A good number of people were milling about around the bar, and several groups clustered around the myriad tables on the floor, many of them talking and laughing rambunctiously. Erik blended in like a picture on the wall. No one was liable to interrupt him with sudden unwanted conversation. Breathing a sigh of relief, he sunk back against the booth and let his mind slowly drift towards the problem of the guard once more.

:: _Terribly sorry_ ,:: a man’s voice from nowhere suddenly echoed in Erik’s head, making him bolt upright, every piece of metal crying out to him from the tables, behind the bar, inside the walls. :: _Oh, there’s no need for violence, I assure you. I just thought I should let you know that that man – Schultheiss? It’s going to be rather difficult for you to find him anymore_.::

Erik’s heart was hammering against his ribcage. Was he hallucinating? He had to be, there was no other explinati-

::A _ctually, there is_.::

Erik scanned the bar again, trying desperately to appear calm even though he knew he must look crazed.

:: _Who are you?_ :: He thought furiously back. :: _Get out of my head_.::

:: _I’m a friend. And as for getting out of your head – no. I think I’ll stay here and make sure you don’t rip the building down around us_.::

 _::Us?::_ Erik thought frantically. And then he spotted him.

Across the bar, sitting near the door and alone just like Erik, was a man, shorter than Erik and younger – actually he looked _much_ younger. He wore dark slacks, a button up, and a vest. His jacket he’d draped over the back of his chair, but when his eyes met Erik’s – and even from this distance, Erik could see the blueness of that stare – he picked up the jacket with one hand, and his own pint with the other, and strode over to Erik’s table with an air of nonchalant assurance. It was like he owned this pub and everyone in it. If Erik hadn’t hated him before, he did now. The man smiled at Erik as he sat down opposite him.

“Who are you,” Erik demanded immediately, wondering how easy it would be to call over a knife from one of other tables without any of the patrons noticing.

“I said already.” The man’s smile widened. “My name’s Charles Xavier. I’m a friend.”

“I don’t have friends,” Erik replied immediately.

“Not yet, Erik.”

Erik nearly jumped out of his seat and across the table, but that would draw too much attention, so instead he just gritted his teeth and tightened his hold on the cutlery. “How do you know my name?”

“I know everything about you, Erik,” Charles replied, taking a casual sip of his beer.

“You work for Schmidt?”

“Don’t be stupid,” Charles said, expression turning instantly icy. :: _You have your tricks, I have mine_.:: He spoke inside Erik’s mind once more and Erik fought his involuntary twitch. :: _Besides, we weren’t talking about me. We were talking about Herr Schultheiss_.::

Fuck. There was nothing else for Erik to do. He took the bait. “Alright, what about him?”

“He’s dead,” Charles answered immediately.

“How?”

“I… turned him off, you might say. And then I threw his body in the Thames.”

Erik blinked. “He’s gone?”

Charles nodded, taking another drink, and Erik swore under his breath.

“I needed him,” Erik managed after a short pause. “He has information that I–”

“Oh, I got all the information,” Charles said, smiling again. His lips were very red.  “All the information you could ever need.”

Erik sneered. “Alright, so what’s your price?”

“Actually,” Charles answered, leaning forward slightly and raising an eyebrow, “I thought we could strike a different sort of bargain.”

There was a strange glint in the other man’s eye, and, despite himself, Erik’s mouth suddenly went dry as sandpaper while a spark of arousal flared up his spine. “Such as?”

“You want Schmidt dead,” Charles replied, inching forward again just slightly. “I want to help you wipe him off the face of the Earth.”


	9. Oreos Suck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Fluff, soulbond, Alternate Universe: College, Alternate Universe: Still Have Powers

Erik’s hand had almost closed around the packet of Oreos when there was a flare of reluctance from over the bond, so quiet he might not have even caught it if his soul mate hadn’t been a telepath and thus, their bond more amplified than most. He turned over his shoulder.

“What?”

“Nothing,” Charles replied innocently, shrugging his shoulders for maximum indifference, which again would have probably worked if Erik couldn’t physically _feel_ Charles’ soft agitation.

“It’s not nothing, don’t lie,” Erik countered, straightening up and walking the few feet back to Charles and their cart, which was already laden with produce, milk, and bread. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” Charles said again. “You like Oreos. You can get them.”

“But these are _our_ groceries,” Erik insisted, stepping closer and resting his hand almost on top of Charles’ on the side of the cart. “You put cookies on the list. Don’t you like Oreos?”

Charles made a face.

They’d moved into their first apartment together that weekend, and while they’d survived until Monday on takeout and pizza, Charles had announced that afternoon when he’d gotten back from his last class that he needed something home-cooked for dinner or he’d die. Erik had whole-heartedly agreed, so here they were.

They’d never gone shopping together before either. In fact, these past few months had been full of firsts, starting when they’d bumped into each other randomly when Erik was starting up the university library’s narrow staircase and Charles was almost down. Their hands had touched, and it was like being burned from the inside out, but in the best possible way.

Erik hadn’t expected to be in his senior year when he met his soul mate; he’d expected to be out in the real world, with a steady job that provided financial support. He hadn’t anticipated his soul mate would also be a student either, and three years younger than him to boot. Apparently, though, the universe had had other plans, and even after having only known Charles for a grand total of nine weeks, Erik knew it wouldn’t have been as perfect any other way.

“You don’t like them,” Erik repeated, this time as a statement. “What? Nobody doesn’t like Oreos.”

Charles frowned. “The filling’s gross,” he said. “It’s too sweet, and it’s gritty, like sand or something.”

“It is not at all like sand,” Erik protested.

Charles quirked an eyebrow. “You eat a lot of sand, then?”

Erik shrugged. “When I was little,” he said, sounding slightly defensive, and Charles laughed.

“So what cookies _do_ you like?” Erik asked incredulously.

“Chips Ahoy…” Charles replied sheepishly.

Erik rolled his eyes. _Of course._ Charles must have picked up on the thought and the swath of affection accompanying it because he smiled up at Erik beatifically.

“These things taste like cardboard,” Erik grumbled even as he walked back over to the selection of cookies and pulled a box of Chips Ahoy off the shelf, slinking back to the cart to drop it in with the rest of their groceries.

He waited for Charles to push the cart forward so he could fall in step alongside him as they headed towards the deli section, but as soon as they were side-by-side, Charles rolled onto his tip-toes, dropping a quick, chaste kiss to Erik’s cheek.

“Thank you, darling,” he said, grinning.

Erik felt his answering smile grow wider and took over control of the cart, rolling it lazily along with his power so Charles’ hands were free to hold. “Any time.”


	10. Office Hours

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: E  
> Tags: Desk sex, bottom!Erik, barebacking, Alternate Universe: Professors, Alternate Universe: No Powers

Charles had been grading for almost eleven straight hours. He’d come to the office at eight in the morning and gotten right to work on the end of the year essays and lab reports for his Introductory Genetics course, knowing they would be the biggest hurtle to jump before grades were due on Friday. He hadn’t, however, expected that he wouldn’t get anything else done the rest of the day, or indeed that he would’ve only been able to take a half-hour lunch break – just long enough to run down to the nearest deli and grab something quick to bring back – and absolutely no dinner break.

On one hand, Charles was glad his students had been so thorough with their work; it meant he’d taught them well, and the majority of them understood the coursework satisfactorily. On the other hand, Charles hadn’t seen another human being in about six hours, and he was starting to go cross-eyed from an entire day of looking at nothing but 12 point Times New Roman font. And, apparently, he thought as he glanced over at the window on the wall opposite his desk that looked out over the courtyard two stories below, the sun was already starting to set.

He sighed, sitting back in his chair – his back giving a loud and painful crack as he did so – and began scrubbing at his face, his eyes shut tight. For a few moments he just sat there, hands blocking out the last rays of day and the light from his desk lamp. A few hours ago he’d texted Erik asking what his dinner plans were, and Erik said he’d come over when he was done grading his own finals. Charles began debating whether or not he should call Erik and follow up, when there was a knock on his office door.

He jumped up, his eyes flying open. When he saw who was standing just in the doorway, smirking slightly, he immediately relaxed back against his chair.

“Hey,” Charles said, smiling as his husband entered, closed the door, and tossed his satchel on one of the armchairs by the window before crossing to Charles’ desk and sitting on the corner that was free of paper. “I thought you’d be done sooner.”

“No such luck,” Erik answered, leaning down to give Charles a quick peck. “My freshman’s essays were mostly shit, and then Armando called in to say that flu bug he’s been holding off for the last week finally caught up with him, so I had to grade the German Cinema papers by myself.”

Charles grimaced sympathetically. “Sounds like both our days haven’t been much fun.”

“Finals never are,” Erik agreed, then he leaned down to kiss Charles again, this time lingering longer, cupping the back of Charles’ head with one hand to hold him in place. Charles’ heart began to pound a little faster, and his breath stuttered out unevenly against Erik’s cheek. “Doesn’t mean the rest of the day has to be shitty though,” Erik reasoned, his words muffled against Charles’ lips. “Let’s make it up to each other. Dinner?”

“Dinner sounds great,” Charles answered, surging up to meet Erik’s mouth again, startling a quiet noise from him that made Charles smile.

In all honesty, Charles _was_ starving, but now that he had Erik here with him, Erik’s tongue licking into his mouth as the hand not threaded in his hair trailed down the front of Charles’ Oxford stopping just above his belt line, maybe dinner could wait. Rolling his chair forward a few more inches, Charles stood without breaking the kiss, so they weren’t at such an awkward angle, and Erik spread his legs a little further apart so Charles could step the rest of the way into his space.

“Missed you this morning,” Erik mumbled as the hand on Charles’ belt dipped lower, stroking Charles’ half-hard cock through his pants and making his hips buck. “You left so early.”

“Wanted to get a head start on the papers,” Charles gasped, bracing himself against Erik’s broad shoulders. “I told you that last – _ah_ – last night.”

“Doesn’t mean I missed you any less,” Erik said, moving his hand away from Charles’ crotch to begin undoing the buttons of his shirt, leaving a trail of kisses across each newly revealed bit of skin.  “We’re alone, aren’t we?”

Charles nodded, swallowing thickly. “Bruce and Moira went home hours ago.”

“Good,” Erik replied.

All the shirt buttons were now undone, and Charles’ shirt gaped open, leaving him slightly chilled thanks to the science office’s overzealous AC unit. Erik’s warm hands were elsewhere, though, working on freeing Charles’ straining erection from the confines of his pants, then stroking him slowly a few times, just enough to tease.

“Get those papers off the desk, Schatz,” Erik instructed, what would have otherwise sounded like a command betrayed by the thread of anticipation in his voice.

“Why?” Charles asked, stepping out of his shoes, pants, and underwear as he moved to do as he was told anyway, transferring the stacks of papers to the floor.

Behind Charles, Erik’s belt jangled to the floor. He worked faster. “Because,” Erik said, scooting over to the middle of the desk and brushing the tails of Charles’ shirt up so he could press a kiss to his lower back. “We’ve both had a very difficult day and I want you to bend me over your desk and fuck me until we can’t see straight.”

Charles straightened up so fast it almost made his head spin, but Erik placed a hand on his hip, grounding him. Instead of replying verbally, Charles chose to dive for Erik’s mouth again, pressing him down until they were horizontal, the desktop no doubt digging into Erik’s back (he’d shrugged off his turtleneck too, apparently, in the interim) while Charles pressed into his front, warm and sturdy, licking at the seam of Erik’s lips until he parted them with a quiet groan.

“I don’t have any lube,” Charles whispered, rocking his hips so that their cocks brushed each other, wringing another quiet noise from Erik, who then wrapped his legs around Charles’ waist, pulling him impossibly closer.

 “Don’t need it,” he breathed, rocking upwards to chase the friction. “This morning. Told you I missed you. I wasn’t lying.”

Charles, who had been nuzzling and biting at Erik’s collarbone, pulled away in surprise to look at his face. “You planned this,” he said incredulously. “All along. You waited all day.”

Erik shrugged, grinning wolfishly up at Charles.

“You could have gotten me sooner,” Charles grumbled, exacting his revenge with a quick pinch to Erik’s side, which made him buck up against Charles’ stomach, his cock twitching in anticipation.

“Get on with it,” he said through gritted teeth, tugging Charles down against him and catching his mouth in a long wet kiss.

Charles was achingly hard, and part of him wanted to listen to Erik; just flip him over and pound inside without any finesse at all. But he loved Erik and didn’t want to hurt him, and this morning was quite a while away. So instead of turning into a complete animal, he pulled away long enough to spit onto two of his fingers before returning to the kiss, slipping his hand in the scant space between their bodies.

Erik let out a short, huffed breath through his nose as the two fingers slid easily inside. It turned out Charles hadn’t needed to be too terribly concerned, but he began to scissor them anyway, making sure Erik was a bit more stretched, much to Erik’s apparent chagrin. The grunt he received in response could have been impatience or pleasure or a most likely a bit of both as Erik rolled his hips up in time with Charles’ fingers, sucking almost absentmindedly on his husband’s tongue.

After a moment longer, when he was satisfied that he wouldn’t hurt Erik, Charles finally pulled out so he could line himself up, his other hand braced above Erik’s shoulder, fingers curled around the edge of the desk.

“Okay?” Charles asked, trying in vain to school his breathing into something less frantic.

Erik nodded quickly, one hand braced above him over the desk’s edge, and the other pressing lightly into Charles’ side, a reassuring weight. Needing no further prompting, Charles rocked his hips and slid the first inch into Erik’s tight, hot grip. He intended to go slowly, to draw this out, but Erik, apparently, had other plans. Pushing against the desk, he slid down farther onto Charles’ length before Charles could make any move to do so himself, his feet spurring insistently at Charles’ backside.

“Faster,” he breathed. “I told you, I – ah!”

Sick of Erik’s wheedling, Charles snapped his hips viciously, sliding all the way home. He smiled gleefully as he watched Erik’s mouth fall wordlessly open, breath catching. Then, slowly, he pulled back until just the tip was inside, slamming forward again when Erik had just seemed to catch his breath, a cry tumbling from his own lips.

The pace Charles set was relentless, but it was what they both needed. Seeing no hint of discomfort in Erik’s face, Charles decided to let himself go, forgetting everything except what it felt like to move in Erik, to plant open-mouthed kisses to every bit of skin he could reach while his husband’s fingernails dug into his back. The only sound Charles could register anymore was their ragged breathing overlaying the sharp slap of skin-on-skin. Then Erik arched his back suddenly, and let out a cry, clenching slightly around Charles’ cock.

“Fuck,” he said. “Charles, yes–”

A moan rumbled up from Charles’ chest and he reached behind himself to unlock one of Erik’s legs so he could press it up and to the side, changing the angle so he could plunge in deeper. Erik made a noise like a whine that he would undoubtedly deny later, and his grip on the desk tightened so much his knuckles turned white, his breath coming in ragged pants. Charles knew Erik was on the brink – and Charles wasn’t far behind him – so he leaned in close, their cheeks brushing, to whisper in Erik’s ear.

“Touch yourself, love,” he coaxed quietly, nipping at Erik’s earlobe.

Erik didn’t need to be told twice. The hand gripping the desk flew down to grasp his own cock instead. He’d barely even stroked twice before he shuddered, curling in on himself as his orgasm crashed over him, making him shout. He clenched even tighter around Charles, who, with just a few more thrusts, felt the pressure that had building up at the base of his spine finally peak as well. Charles’ hips jerked erratically and he moaned long and low as he spent himself inside Erik, slumping over onto him when he couldn’t support his own weight any longer.

For a few minutes, they stayed like that, catching their breath and letting the sweat on their bodies cool. Charles played lazily with Erik’s hair, which was starting to get a bit longer than normal, and Erik trailed his own fingers down the notches in Charles’ spine. Finally, though, the afterglow began to wear off and their position began to get more and more uncomfortable.

With a soft noise, Charles straightened up and pulled out, smoothing his palm over Erik’s thigh soothingly. He bent over to grab his pants, and when he’d stood up again, Erik was sitting on the edge of the desk once more. He pulled Charles to him for a long, slow kiss.

“I love you,” he said when they broke apart.

“I love you, too,” Charles replied, tugging on his clothes again. “Thank you. That was a wonderful surprise.”

They finished redressing in silence. When they were both presentable again, Charles checked the desk to make sure the morning cleaning staff wouldn’t be traumatized (they wouldn’t be, luckily, and by then the smell would probably be gone), and placed the stacks of papers on the edge of the desk again before taking Erik’s hand.

“Come on,” he said, pressing a kiss to Erik’s knuckles. “Let’s go home. I’m starving.”


	11. Love and Duty

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Tags: Depictions of violence, hurt/comfort, Alternate Universe: Fantasy, Alternate Universe: No Powers, established relationship, Character: Tony Stark

There was a splitting, insistent pain slicing through Erik’s middle, and for a moment he still felt the icy rock of the battlefield underneath him. The chaos of battle pounded in his ears, and he saw Shaw still above him; broadsword raised high, diving down through the air, the point aimed straight at his heart. Charles was screaming his name, the terror in his voice even more painful than the deep gash in his abdomen. His heart pounded in his ears, and he watched helplessly as the blade plunged down, down–

“ _Erik_.”

Something shook him hard by his shoulder and he woke abruptly with a strangled shout. Sweating and gasping for air, his sudden move to sit up jerked to a halt by corresponding peak in the pain in his torso. He forwent more movement, other than gulping desperately for more air. His cheeks felt wet, and when he blinked quickly, trying to shake off the nightmare, he could feel dampness clumping his eye lashes together.

A cautious but steady hand rested on his forearm, and he turned to see Charles seated by his bedside in their royal tent. The cold light of dawn and the light from the lamp on the table next to his bed cast stark shadows across Charles’ face, making him look gaunt and much older than his twenty-six years. The dark circles under his eyes were so deep they almost looked like bruises, and Erik could see his bottom lip had been split by a harsh blow. He swallowed. His throat felt dry.

“I’m sorry,” he croaked, turning his arm so his hand faced palm-up, a request and apology combined.

“Don’t,” Charles replied. His voice was as steady as his hand, but Erik could tell that it was a very thin disguise to hide the worry and anger underneath. He paused then asked, “You’re in pain?”

Erik nodded.

“And thirsty.”

Erik nodded again, even though it hadn’t been a question.

“I’m going to help you sit up and drink, and then I’m going to call for the surgeon,” Charles said, his tone broking no argument, but Erik wouldn’t have fought him even if he wanted to.

Slowly, Charles lifted Erik’s torso off the soft down of their bed, moving him like a doll until he was propped gently against the headboard, his back supported by pillows. A little more lucidity had returned to him, and he now realized he wasn’t wearing a shirt. The only thing above his waist was a band of tightly-wound wrappings, covering up what he knew would be a long gash just above his hips.

The air was still cold, but Erik didn’t notice until Charles pulled away, taking his warmth with him to pour a glass of water from the pitcher next to the lamp on the besides table. Erik watched him. The lamplight caught the gold of his wedding ring, making it shine, before he turned back to face Erik again. His right hand cupped the back of Erik’s neck gently, as his left brought the cup to Erik’s parched lips.

“Drink,” he instructed. “Slowly.”

Erik did as he was told. The water wasn’t as cold as it could have been, fetched as it probably was from the mountain spring near their camp, but it tasted beautiful anyway as it helped to soothe the ache in his throat. He drank half the glass before Charles pulled it away to set it back on the table.

“That’s enough for now,” he said. “I’m going to get Tony.”

He turned to go, but before he could get too far, Erik reached up and caught his wrist, capturing it gently and stopping him in his tracks. His back was still to Erik, but Erik could feel the pulse in his wrist jumping against his fingers.

“You are hurt,” Charles said evenly. “I am getting you help, Erik.”

“I know,” Erik replied, reeling the hand he was holding back, Charles coming with it even though he still didn’t turn around. When it was close enough so he wouldn’t have to sit up and risk hurting himself further, he brought Charles’ hand to his lips, brushing a soft kiss across the knuckles battered from fighting.

Charles sighed, relaxing at the touch, and he let his fingers uncurl, turning his hand so they caught under Erik’s chin, running over the stubble that was there from days of not shaving.

Erik reluctantly let go of his wrist after a moment, the pain becoming more and more insistent with each passing second until he couldn’t ignore it any longer, and Charles let out another quiet sigh before marching quickly out of the tent. Erik closed his eyes, trying to focus on the soft pillows instead of the sharp throbbing in his midriff. Some minutes later, the flap of the tent flew open again and Tony strode quickly through, already rolling up his sleeves and offering Erik a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes.

“The sleeping beauty finally awakes,” he said cheerfully. “His majesty tells me you need some more fixing up. Let’s have a little look-see, then.”

__________________________________________________

  
Tony took longer than Erik had expected to check on the stitches – luckily still holding nicely – and administer some more healing herbs to the wound before binding Erik tightly up again and giving him a sleeping draught. Erik had protested at first, wanting to stay awake and properly talk to Charles at last, but Tony had threatened force and when that had failed, pointed out how much more upset Charles would be with Erik if he found out he had turned down Tony’s help.

The medicine had worked almost immediately, so it was dark when Erik’s eyes blinked open again, thankfully much more peacefully than the first time he had woken. Charles was seated once more by his bedside, but his eyes were closed now, his head tipped back and mouth slightly open as he slept. Erik was loath to wake him, so instead, he busied himself with the arduous task of sitting upright without jostling his bandages.

Whatever Tony had given him was still working. He felt only a dull, half-hearted protest as he turned gently to pick up the half-full cup still sitting on the bedside table. He had almost drained it when Charles shifted suddenly, sucking in a deep breath as his eyes flew open. He sat up quickly, his eyes turning immediately to Erik, and he paused, confused, when he saw Erik already awake.

Neither of them spoke for a long moment. Erik lowered the glass back to the table as he and Charles simply watched each other, the tension slowly draining from them both the longer they looked. Charles was the first to blink, expression cracking slightly. Erik could see the tears starting to brim in his eyes even as Charles resolutely ignored them.

“Do not apologize to me,” he said, voice trembling. “I told you not to go after Shaw alone. That was the one thing I asked, and you agreed.”

“I know,” Erik replied, feeling his own throat beginning to constrict painfully around the words.

“We had a plan.”

“I know.”

“A plan you came up with.”

Erik swallowed as Charles blinked and a tear finally fell, but he ignored it, barreling on angrily at Erik who could do nothing but lie there.

“Never, ever play the hero like that with me again. Ever. I can take care of myself. You know that. We could have taken him together like we were supposed to.” Charles’ voice was shaking as much as his hands were as gesticulated angrily at Erik. “You would have never gotten hurt.” A choked sob finally escaped with the words, but it only slowed Charles down for a second.

“You are lucky he wasn’t paying attention,” Charles said, a bit more evenly. “You are lucky he had his visor up. You are lucky I still had arrows, and you are lucky that Raven could stop the bleeding while we were still dragging you back here. You are so, so incredibly lucky.”

The space between them was heavy with the weight of Charles’ words. Erik knew everything Charles had just said was the truth. He had been stupid to take on Shaw by himself. They had had a plan, one that probably would have worked. But the small margin of error, the slight chance that something could have gone wrong…

During the first volley, a projectile from a trebuchet had narrowly missed Charles, who hadn’t been paying attention, who had had his back turned, shouting orders to get the wounded away from the battle. The stone had gone rocketing past Charles, and by some miracle, harmed no one as it smashed into the ground several hundred yards behind them. But it just as easily could have crushed Charles against the rocky, unforgiving ground with it.

Erik had seen that and known in an instant he couldn’t go through with the plan they’d thought up together over endless nights pouring over maps and battle strategies, thinking of how best to defend their land from the attack Shaw brought with him from the South. They had heard terrible accounts of his reign from Southern refugees; the way he tortured and killed anyone who questioned him, even those who had once been his closest advisors, the way his people starved while he and his cronies threw wild, extravagant parties and threw away whatever was left over. Shaw’s hunger for power had grown equally with his hunger for more land and more people to rule, and his eyes had turned North to the peaceful realm of Genosha.

But what Shaw hadn’t known is that peaceful did not mean unprotected, and Erik had spent every waking minute of the past year preparing to end the coming threat for good. He wouldn’t let his and Charles’ kingdom fall into the hands of such a madman.

The plan he’d hatched with Charles – fighting Shaw together, covering each other as only they knew how – had been the solution. But in the moment when he almost lost Charles, Erik realized that he could not live through that experience again. He hadn’t waited for Charles as they fought their way through the masses of his troops toward the mad Southern King, and hadn’t paused when Shaw sneeringly invited him into combat. Everything had gone wrong from there.

Charles sniffed, wiping impatiently at his cheeks, staring Erik down steadily in the tent illuminated only by a few lamps and a fire burning in the center of the space.

“What do you have to say for yourself?” Charles asked, his tone commanding. The voice of a King. It was a tone he had only rarely used on Erik, and it never failed to both irk and discomfit him.

Erik swallowed, his own tears finally escaping despite his best efforts to hold them back. “I couldn’t lose you,” he whispered. “I couldn’t risk any chance of that happening.”

Charles scoffed angrily. “You will drive me mad one day,” he replied fiercely.

Erik choked out a mirthless laugh, and finally, _finally_ , Charles rose off the chair and leaned over him, pressing a firm kiss against his mouth. Erik could tell he was about to pull away, and pre-emptively threaded a hand through his soft hair, preventing Charles from moving as he parted his lips, a quiet request.

Charles made a quiet noise that rumbled in his throat, and answered by licking gently into Erik’s mouth, stroking his tongue alongside Erik’s as he rested a hand on his still-bare chest. They broke apart some moments later, breathing ragged, Charles’ hair slightly mussed from Erik’s fingers.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” Erik asked, voice rough.

“I was mad at you,” Charles replied. His thumb stroked warmth along Erik’s collarbone, and he dipped in for another soft kiss. “And I didn’t want to hurt you.”

“You’re hurting me by keeping away,” Erik breathed. “It’s your bed too.”

Charles nodded, straightening up. “I suppose it is.”

He shucked his outer clothes quickly, folding them neatly and placing them on the chair, before padding around to the other side of the bed and climbing under the covers. Gingerly, he and Erik shifted until Erik was laying on his back on the mattress once more, Charles pressed along the length of his side, one arm slung high around his chest, careful of the bandages. Charles’ breath stuttered across the side of Erik’s neck and he sighed, the last of the worry and tension draining from him.

“Sleep, my love,” Charles whispered, dropping a quick kiss to his jaw. “We both need to.”

Erik hummed his agreement and shut his eyes, easily drifting off with the calming feeling of Charles alive and warm next to him.


	12. Oh what a night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> G, pre-slash, Erik is Crushing Harder than a 12 year old girl, Charles Xavier has a PhD in adorable, Modern AU: Still have powers, Characters: Azazel, Raven, Angel Salvadore

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> written for the anon prompt "smitten awkward Erik is my favorite thing"

Erik did not like weddings.

They were expensive, loud, and usually involved a lot of relatives whose names you couldn’t remember trying to make small talk with you as they got progressively more drunk. And of course there was the happy crying. Erik couldn’t stand happy crying.

In fact, just as a general rule, Erik didn’t really enjoy people or emotions all that much, period. It was a characteristic that had made him notorious at the law firm where he worked.

“That Lehnsherr guy?” he’d heard Angel, the clerk, say to a new hire once as he passed the break room on his way back to his desk. “He’s brilliant in the court room – I don’t think he’s ever lost a case for mutant rights, which is impressive if you ask anyone. But I don’t think I’ve ever seen him talk to another living person unless he had to.”

Erik had thought this a bit unfair. So he didn’t feel like fraternizing with his co-workers outside of the office. So sue him. It was a free country; he could talk to whomever he wanted.

And he did have friends. They were maybe a little few and far between, but they did exist even if his co-workers didn’t’ want to believe it. He’d known Emma and Janos since his freshman year of college when they’d joined the campus’ more politically active mutant group. Their shared passion for mutant rights and representation, as well as their mutual begrudging respect for each other despite misanthropic leanings, had cemented their friendship for these past twelve years. They still went out for lunch every other week at their favorite deli in Manhattan, or at least he and Janos did. Emma joined them whenever she was in the country, and when she’d decided eating at a deli instead of a four-star restaurant wasn’t too demeaning to her social status. Erik wasn’t fooled. He knew she worshiped the tortellini no matter how hard she tried to deny it.

His oldest friend, though, was Azazel. They’d met in kindergarten at the only mutant friendly daycare in their small, poor neighborhood. Even though all the other kids had been mutants – some with visible mutations like Warren and Megan with their large wings – almost all of them had shied away from the small, red-skinned boy with the sharp tail when he first arrived at the daycare, peeking shyly around his mother’s leg.

Not Erik. While the others continued on as if the boy wasn’t even there, playing with blocks or dolls or reading quietly in the corner, Erik had stood and walked right up to the boy who had been worrying the faded carpet with the toe of his light up sneaker, avoiding eye contact with his peers.

“Hey,” he’d said. “My name’s Erik.”

“Azazel,” the other boy had mumbled.

Erik had appraised him for a moment, looking him up and down, his brow furrowed as he took in the racecar shoes on the boy’s feet and the dinosaur t-shirt on his front. A T-Rex. Erik had sniffed in approval.

“You like trains?” he asked, hands on hips. “We got some.”

Azazel had nodded eagerly, following Erik to the old beat up wooden train set in the corner. They had been fast friends ever since.

Azazel had been the first person Erik came out to as bisexual in high school, hands shaking and feeling a little like he might throw up. He had been there when Erik’s mother was diagnosed with breast cancer, and when she went into remission three years later.

For his part, Erik had been Azazel’s friend through the years of teasing and sometimes outright violence Azazel had endured for his appearance, and had been there to celebrate with him when the Mutant Registration Act got shot down for good by the Supreme Court after years of debating in the House and the Senate.

So it came as no real surprise that when Azazel got engaged, he asked Erik to be his best man. If it had been anyone else, Erik probably would have refused on principle. But Azazel knew Erik’s natural aversion to pomp and circumstance of any kind and had asked him to be a part of the wedding anyway. It must be important to him, and Erik found he couldn’t turn his friend down after all.

“Right,” Azazel said, grinning and slapping Erik hard on the back. “I’ll tell Raven. She can get you in touch with her man of honor.”

“ _Man_ of honor?” Erik asked, raising an eyebrow and using his power to unscrew the cap on the beer he had just retrieved from Azazel’s fridge.

He’d only met Raven a handful of times since she and Azazel had started dating the year before, and he liked her well enough. Still, he knew very little about her besides what Azazel chose to share, and that was mostly things like her favorite TV show, which they had started watching together a few months before, or the way she would never replace the toilet paper roll in the bathroom, which annoyed Azazel to no end.

Azazel nodded. “Her brother. They were estranged for a few years. He went to school in England somewhere – Oxford,” he said, pausing to toss back some more of his own drink. “He came back to the US a few years ago after their mother died and they started talking again. They’re very close now apparently. His name is Charles. Charles Xavier.”

Erik choked on his drink. Azazel’s grin widened.

“You know him?”

“I’ve… I’ve heard of him,” Erik replied, hoping he could blame his flamingly red cheeks on having almost just drowned in beer. “He wrote some articles that influenced the British government to overturn their own registration act just before the US did.”

“Well, then, you’ll get along well, I think,” Azazel returned.

He’d been right. More than right. Erik and Charles met for lunch a few weeks later upon Raven’s insistence so they could get to know each other a little more and begin splitting up wedding duties.

From the moment Erik walked into the bustling restaurant and glanced around, only for his gaze to be caught by the bluest eyes and brightest smile he’d ever seen, he’d been caught. He actually tripped over his own feet on his way to the table, his face burning with embarrassment when he finally reached it and blurted out an abrupt, “Charles Xavier?”

Charles smiled blindingly, all cheery white teeth and curvy, kissable lips, and _oh shit he was a telepath, wasn’t he?_ Erik squelched his thoughts forcibly under a mental foot before they could be broadcasted too loudly – a technique Emma had taught him years ago.

“Erik Lehnsherr,” Charles said, standing and holding out a hand for Erik to take, which he did, shaking it briefly before he could think too much about the soft, solid warmth of Charles’ palm. “It’s lovely to finally meet you.”

“I… you too,” Erik said lamely, sitting down in the seat opposite Charles’ and shimmying out of his coat. When did he forget how to take off a coat without looking like an idiot? It was a good thing none of his co-workers were here, or he’d never live it down. “Did – I hope you didn’t have trouble finding this place.”

“Oh, none at all,” Charles answered.

The good humor obviously evident in this man’s every look and mannerism would have annoyed Erik in anyone else. Normally he abhorred small talk and avoided it like the plague even in polite circumstances, but something about Charles was so sincere and earnest that he couldn’t help putting forth the extra effort.

Of course it helped that Erik had been casually celebrity-crushing on him from afar for several years. They definitely disagreed on most mutant policy – Xavier was too lenient, and his dreams of a peaceful and open society were, frankly, childishly unrealistic – but his work for equality had been invaluable all the same. Without Charles’ research in the field of mutant genetics over the past ten years, and his dogged work towards equal rights in the political arena, the world might be even more ignorant and unfriendly than they were already. Erik couldn’t help but admire and respect Charles for that.

Charles was grinning at Erik a little conspiratorially over the table now, leaning forward, and Erik couldn’t help but lean closer as well. “Actually,” Charles admitted, raising an eyebrow, “I have to say, I’m very excited to work with you, Erik. Raven tells me you work for a law firm specializing in mutant cases. That’s a subject very near to my heart.”

Erik swallowed. “Me too.”

“Of course, we should get through the wedding business first,” Charles replied, sitting back in his chair and reaching into a coat pocket for a piece of paper, which he unfolded and passed to Erik. It was a list of things Raven requested they cover during their lunch. “But I’m sure we’ll have time to get to know each other a little better before the wedding as well.”

Erik’s heart sank a little. Right. Wedding business. He nodded and perused the list, carefully reconstructing the habitually-worn mask of indifference he’d lost the second he’d locked eyes on Xavier. When he looked up again, Charles’ smile lost some of its shine. A flicker of confusion passed behind his bright blue eyes, but it was gone almost before it had formed, and Erik almost doubted he’d even seen it.

“Right, then,” Charles said, smile more fixed than it had been seconds before. “I believe item one is the flower arrangements?”

Erik nodded again.

The conversation had progressed from there, a little haltingly at first, but eventually they’d gotten through the whole list, and Charles’ smiles had even started to turn genuine again, if no longer suggestive. Erik couldn’t help but feel that he’d rejected some unspoken offer without meaning to, and although Charles seemed to have recovered by the end of the lunch, Erik hoped he hadn’t ruined his chance to befriend (and, okay, more than befriend) Charles on accident.

They saw each other at least once a week for the next four months as the wedding day approached, sometimes for tux fittings, other days to talk to the caterers with Raven and Azazel or to work on one of Raven’s seemingly endless list of DIY crafts for the table decorations.

Hours and hours of hot gluing buttons onto endless lengths of ribbon had eventually taken their toll, and slowly, Erik began to open up to Charles. They talked as they worked, laughing over stories of Charles and Raven’s childhood, which Erik suspected hadn’t been half as carefree as Charles made it sound, or arguing about politics. Much to Erik’s chagrin, Charles found his views were too separatist and extreme, but when Erik lost control of himself momentarily and called Charles’ views farcically naïve, Charles had only paused for a moment, before bursting out laughing.

“I don’t know why we’re arguing,” he said, running a hand over his forehead as he chuckled while Erik tried to hide the fact that he had burned his own hand with the hot glue gun watching the arch of Charles’ throat as he laughed. “We essentially want the same thing. We should be thinking of ways to work together to get it.”

Erik opened his mouth to respond in the negative, anger slightly elevated by his smarting palm, but he paused and thought for a moment, considering.

“Maybe you’re right,” he said gruffly, using his powers to call over two more beers from the fridge as a peace offering. “Maybe.”

The smile Charles turned on him was beatific, but even better was the soft brush across the surface of Erik’s thoughts like a caress, warm and bright, but gone too quickly.

Finally, after months of preparation, May and the day of the wedding was upon them. Erik would never admit to anyone how sweaty his own palms were as he stood at the front of the church behind Azazel, watching Charles escort Raven down the isle. The stark white of her wedding dress showed off even more the beauty of her blue skin and bright yellow eyes. She was stunning. But Erik hardly saw her.

Instead, he found he couldn’t tear his eyes away from the man at her side. Charles’ eyes were unnaturally bright with unshed tears, but he was smiling wider than Erik had ever seen before, which really was saying something. He held onto the hand Raven had clasped to his bicep, absentmindedly stroking his thumb over her fingers as they strode up to Azazel to the poetic lilt of violins.

Raven turned to him when they reached the steps that led to the altar and pulled him into a tight hug. Erik saw Charles’ eyes close tightly while he hugged his sister, dropping a quick kiss to her cheek before she pulled away and practically bounded up the steps toward Azazel, Charles following more subdued to his place beside her.

The rest of the ceremony passed in a blur, and soon everyone was congratulating Azazel and Raven outside the church while Erik stayed inside and called the caterer to make sure everything was running on time.

Pictures went less smoothly than the ceremony had, Raven and Azazel too busy ogling each other to pay much attention to the photographer’s instructions, but by some miracle, they finished with enough time to make it to the reception without being late. The rest of the night – dinner, cake cutting, and, remarkably, even Erik’s best man speech –all went without a hitch, and soon after Raven and Azazel’s first dance finished, the rest of the guests began to crowd onto the dance floor.

Erik had no real intention to do anything but sit and enjoy the free alcohol, but almost as soon as he had settled back into his chair, he felt a warm hand on his forearm, and looking up, met the enthusiastic gaze of the man of honor.

“Come on!” Charles coaxed, his cheeks slightly flushed from his two glasses of champagne. Erik could see the two freckles standing out on his nose even with the ambient lighting. “It’s a wedding! You can’t just sit and scowl at everyone all night.”

“I don’t dance,” Erik protested weakly. “I have two left feet.”

Charles rolled his eyes. “No one’s going to care. Look, even Aunt Augusta is out there!”

Indeed, Azazel’s eighty-year-old aunt was on the dance floor doing some sort of elaborate head and shoulders undulation to the strains of December 1963.

“Come on,” Charles said, smiling mischievously. “I’ll help you.”

Erik swallowed. “Charles…”

“ _Erik_.” Charles took Erik’s hands and began pulling him to his feet. “Azazel made me promise to make sure you have fun tonight, and I intend to keep my word.”

He winked, and Erik felt his mouth go dry. Charles’ grin widened, knowing he’d won, and Erik was forced to follow helplessly behind as he led the way to the dance floor. No sooner had they reached it, however, than the upbeat song suddenly faded, leading into a slow, sultry acoustic tune.

“Oh,” Erik said stupidly.

“Well, I guess you’ll just have to dance this one with me instead,” Charles said, reaching up to loop his arms around Erik’s neck, but stopping just short. “Unless, of course, you don’t want to.” Charles looked suddenly unsure. He lowered his hands, but his gaze was steady as he watched Erik, bottom lip caught between his teeth. “I’m not even sure if you’re gay or not,” he admitted quietly, tapping his temple. “I haven’t looked. I promise.”

“I,” Erik stuttered, feeling his tongue slowly turning to mush in his mouth, “I’m not gay. Well, I mean I am sort of. Bi. Sexual. I’m bisexual. But I do like guys. Obviously. I like you.” He cleared his throat awkwardly and Charles’ expression began to smooth into a smile again. “I’d very much like to dance with you.”

“I’d very much like to dance with you too, Erik,” Charles replied, stepping in closer and resting a hand on Erik’s shoulder as Erik rested another on his hip, lacing their free hands together and holding them close to his chest.

They swayed gently on the spot, Erik’s heart thumping against his ribcage, hardly able to believe its luck in being so close to Charles Xavier after so long. Charles stepped in closer and rested his head on Erik’s shoulder, pressing his nose to the column of Erik’s throat and breathing in his cologne with a satisfied sigh.

“Isn’t there some sort of tradition about the best man and the maid of honor?” he said. “Or man of honor, I suppose, as the case may be.”

Erik grinned and wrapped his arm more securely around Charles’ waist. “I believe I’ve heard something about that, yes,” he replied.

“Mmm,” Charles hummed. “We may have to look into that later, if you’d like. Wouldn’t want anything to be overlooked. Sister’s wedding. It’s got to be perfect.”

“I agree.” Erik paused for a moment, basking in the feeling that Charles actually wanted to go home with him. After a moment he felt another faint brush against his thoughts, not intrusive, simply there. Resting. Like a contented cat. He smiled, and said, “You know, I think I kind of like weddings.”

Charles pulled back, the better to look at Erik. His eyes were soft and happy before they fluttered closed and he leaned in, pressing his lips gently against Erik’s, lingering for a brief moment before pulling back enough to mutter,  “I think I do, too.”


	13. Back to the Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> G, XMDFP, fix-it, pre-slash, kidfic, Characters: Logan Howlett, Raven Darkholme, Kitty Pryde, Jakob and Edie Lehnsherr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For a challenge prompt from kageillusionz: time travel

Years from now, Logan thought as he stared out towards the huge, sickly green statue jutting out of the water, many, many years from now, when he looks back on this whole ordeal it might even be a little bit funny. It certainly hadn’t been funny when he’d first been briefed on it by the Professor and Magneto himself in the bombed out shell of a building 86 years into the future.

“Go back in time to 1937,” the Professor had explained calmly. “Convince the Lehnsherrs in Dusseldorf to move to New York – I’ll give you Erik’s German before you leave. Bring them to the mansion. Talk to the butler, Mr. Ryan, and get them a job. You should have no problem; we were short staffed for several years before the war. And most importantly, introduce us – me and Raven – to Erik before Shaw can ever get to him.”

 “Shaw was where things started to go wrong,” Magneto said quietly, his face dark and unreadable. “If you succeed, you will save the world – and the mutant species – from complete annihilation. It’s the only way we can be sure.”

The whole thing was much easier said than done, no matter how much optimism the Professor tried to project, but then they all had known that, of course, just as they all knew that this was their only hope.

“I have the utmost faith that this will work, Logan,” the Professor had said, his soft smile the last thing Logan had seen before he closed his eyes, bracing himself as Kitty leaned forward, her hands hovering near his temples.

Now, after weeks of preparation and long conversations planning their escape in the Lehnsherr kitchen, Logan hoped the Professor’s confidence hadn’t been misplaced. They’d gotten this far. All that stood in the way now was some bureaucratic red tape and 80 miles of land. Those hurtles jumped, his mission would be complete and his consciousness zapped back to the future. He shuddered to think of the mental whiplash he was in for at the other end of 86 years.

Taking in a lungful of sooty New York City air, Logan looked down at the young boy next to him. He was gripping the railing of the boat so tightly his small knuckles stood out white against the yellow paint, an expression of excitement beginning to steal over his bony, pale features. When he looked up at Logan, the boy didn’t even attempt to hold back his grin, which was so big it crinkled the bridge of his nose. Looking around surreptitiously, he tugged insistently at Logan’s pant leg before Logan bent a little closer, bringing his ear to the boy’s lips.

“ _I can feel the metal_ ,” nine-year-old Erik Lehnsherr whispered, actually raising a hand to stifle a giggle that had bubbled up, and glancing excitedly back to the the Statue of Liberty.

Logan blinked. He reminded himself not to be shocked, not to dwell on the memories he had of the first Erik Lehnsherr and this particular landmark. It was his job to make sure the shy, excitable boy next to him never grew into the man in those memories, the man he had left behind in 2023. He swallowed quickly and forced a smile.

“Why don’t we go tell your mom about it, kid? It’s almost time to go.”

Erik threw another quick grin over his shoulder before he took off, sprinting across the beaten metal of ship’s deck toward the silhouettes of a tall, thin woman and her broad shouldered husband, standing strong against the buffeting wind.

 ________________________________________________________________

Frustratingly, there were several more weeks of unforeseen waiting before Logan found an opening to make his last move. Though he and the Lehnsherrs had settled in to their new rooms in the servant’s quarters of Westchester with little fanfare, young Charles and young Raven were nowhere to be seen. It was a surprisingly rainy summer, so Logan figured they were probably hidden away somewhere cozy in the mansion while he prowled the grounds, pruning shrubs and setting traps for moles.

The first week dragged out into the second, and Jakob and Edie began to integrate quite well with the other members of the staff, many of whom were fleeing situations like theirs. After the second week ended, something in the Lehnsherrs seemed to relax, like a muscle unclenching, and Logan found himself grateful, if nothing else, to have gone back in time to see the pinched look around Edie’s eyes disappear.

Still, apart from sharing meals with the other staff, Logan kept mostly to himself – no point in making friends he didn’t intend to keep – but to his surprise, Erik stuck to him like a shadow. As the weather let up, he roamed the gardens throughout the day, laying mulch, clipping rose bushes, and keeping one eye peeled for a glimpse of Charles or Raven, always a bit on edge. Erik trailed behind him, studying his movements as he worked, and occasionally asking questions in a patchwork of German and English, trying to grasp the new language.

To his immense shock, Logan found himself actually becoming a little attached to his helper. He had been wary his first few days of knowing this Erik - how could he not be, with the knowledge of who he would become – but soon it became clear that there was no reason to be cautious. The Erik Lehnsherr Logan knew had started out much the same as any young boy with a good home. He was curious, polite, eager to please, intelligent, and a little timid, much to Logan’s chagrin. There was something that had happened to Erik, something with this Shaw the Professor and Magneto had mentioned, that had changed all that.

But Logan wasn’t here to get sentimental. He had a mission to complete, and as the third week of life at the mansion commenced, Logan was starting to get worried. Where were Charles and Raven? Did they never go outside? It was late summer, and humid, but there had been a breeze the past few days. It must be stuffy wherever they had sequestered themselves in the mansion.

Then, on the third Tuesday at their new home, as Erik was crouched next to him on the grass near the front gate, staring hard at the prongs of a garden claw they had just used to unearth a nasty patch of dandelions, Logan heard the sputter of a motor coming up the lane. He glanced up, vigilance a habit, though hadn’t seen anyone leave all day and so doubted to see young Charles or Raven returning. He was wrong.

“Hey,” Logan barked suddenly, making Erik jump where he was still staring down the garden claw. He jerked his head conspicuously towards the car. Sitting in the back, chatting animatedly, was a young girl with springy blonde hair and a slow smile and a boy with unruly brown hair whose grin seemed perpetually plastered across his face. “More kids.”

Erik stood, his gaze following the car with Charles and Raven as it rolled through the gates and toward the circle drive in front of the mansion. As it passed, Charles’ head turned at the last second and his eyes met Erik’s. For a moment, Charles’ expression froze. Then, just as abruptly, his face lit up even brighter than it had been before. He turned in his seat as the car continued on, his gaze still fixed on Erik even as he tugged emphatically at Raven’s arm.

Well, Logan thought, this was certainly a turn of events. Smirking, he looked down at Erik. The boy was slack-jawed, staring as the car pulled around in front of the entryway and stopped to allow the children to hop out. No sooner had the two figures emerged from the car than they took off across the lawn, bolting toward them.

“Care to tell me what happened?” Logan asked.

Erik closed his mouth and swallowed, eyes still wide as dinner plates. “Ich weiß nicht,” he sputtered, still staring at the figures as they drew closer. “I was thinking so hard at the metal” – he tossed a hand carelessly toward the garden claw – “und es fühlte sich wie… there was someone in my head. When I saw him.”

Charles and Raven drew closer and closer, and Logan’s heart suddenly jumped into his throat, his muscles tightening as if bracing for a fight. The rational part of Logan’s brain knew it was an absurd reaction, but he couldn’t help himself. The entire future was riding on this meeting, and Logan had seen what things these three were capable of doing to each other in another life, when stakes and emotions were high.

 _Calm_ , Logan told himself, relaxing the set of his shoulders. _Calm_.

Charles and Raven came galloping up the last few yards, skidding to a stop in front of them, chests heaving. Raven looked supremely confused and a little anxious, but Charles was still beaming even as he fought to catch his breath. God, they couldn’t have been older than eight, Logan realized. Raven must have been around six.

“Hello,” Charles said, walking up to Erik and offering a hand. “My name is Charles Xavier, and this is my sister Raven. I’m sorry if I scared you running up here, but we just got back from holiday and I wanted to meet you.”

Erik looked at Charles a little skeptically, but the other boy’s smile didn’t falter, and after a moment, Erik seemed to dispel any other doubts he might have. He took Charles’ hand and shook it a little nervously.

“Erik,” he mumbled, a flush beginning to spread over his cheeks and to the tips of his ears. “I… don’t speak very good English. It is hard to understand.”

Raven immediately rolled her eyes and scoffed, shoving Charles pointedly in the shoulder. “See, Charles, I _told_ you to slow down,” she chided before turning to Erik matter-of-factly. “Sorry. My brother gets carried away a lot. But you learn to love him anyway.” Charles began to blush now, but before Erik could reply, Raven turned to Logan. “Hi. Are you Erik’s dad?”

Logan suddenly felt extremely out of place. “Uh, no,” he answered, looking at the small group in front of him, but Erik and Charles seemed to only have eyes for each other. Some things never change. He took a step backwards and started to turn back toward the dandelion patch. “Just a friend. I’ve got work to do, though. I’ll let you three get acquainted.”

“Okay.” Raven shrugged, her attention already turning back to Erik and Charles, who were talking lowly, Charles drawing Erik back to the house with a quiet promise of lemonade.

“–not alone, Erik,” he heard Charles whisper as he tugged at the other boy’s hand. “I’ll show you. Raven, too.”

Logan watched them go, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth, when suddenly he noticed the world begin to shimmer around him. There was an abrupt jerking sensation, as if something was tugging him backwards by the sternum, and then the colors of the mansion’s garden began to warp and fray.

It only took a second for Logan to realize what it meant. Erik and Charles and Raven were together now. His mission was over. Fuck, he hoped there wasn’t something worse for him waiting on the other side.

Logan closed his eyes and drank in one last deep lungful of fresh country air. This was going to hurt like a motherfucker.


	14. Spring Cleaning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T, fluff, Alternate Universe: Modern - Still have Powers, Character: Edie Lehnsherr

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for a prompt from ikeracity "charles and erik in an established relationship cleaning out their cluttered garage/closets and finding old college things, baby photos, love letters, etc."

Erik had really been putting this off for far too long. He’d officially moved out of his mother’s house his junior year of college, which was just shy of six years ago, and he and Charles had been living in their apartment in the city for almost a year already. There was no reason for him to still have boxes of old junk sitting around in her house. Recently, his mother had started dropping hints about turning his old room into a guest room and Erik had gracefully taken the hint.

He decided to devote the closest free weekend to a much-needed spring-cleaning and exodus of his things from his old room to the apartment’s storage closet.

“There won’t be much,” Erik explained when Charles immediately offered to help. “Just a few boxes of stuff to sift through. It’ll take an hour at most.”

But of course, Charles had insisted on joining him and now, as he glanced at the alarm clock still plugged into his old bedside table, he saw he and Charles had already wasted half the morning over several cups of coffee and slices of coffee cake with his mother. Unseen by Charles, who was currently nosing through the old knickknacks on Erik’s dresser, Erik scrubbed a hand over his face.

It wasn’t that Erik didn’t enjoy his mother’s company – far from it, in fact; hers was the only presence besides Charles’ that Erik enjoyed and actually sought out. But there was one thing his mother and Charles had in common that frustrated Erik to no end, and that was their inability to stick to rigid timetables and pre-established game plans.

Although, he mused, he shouldn’t complain. It was a universally acknowledged fact that his mother’s coffee cake was the best in the state of New York.

With a put-upon sigh, Erik flicked his fingers and opened the closet doors on the far side of the room. Sure enough, the closet was filled with boxes. Most of it was Erik’s, but there were a few extras off to the side with labels like “FAMILY PICTURES”, “BABY CLOTHES”, and “TAXES 2005 – 2010” that Erik ignored in favor of hoisting the first of his boxes off the very top of the pile and setting it in the middle of the room.

“Erik!” Charles called as Erik sat cross-legged on the floor and pulled the box closer. “This is us at graduation. Why is it here? It should be in the apartment.”

Erik glanced up. Sure enough, Charles had found the photo of the two of them, decked out in their red high school graduation robes, amid the other things on the dresser and was smiling affectionately down at their faces.

“I guess I forgot I had it,” Erik replied. He reached out a hand to catch the box cutter his mother had left on his bedside table and with a wave of his fingers used it to slice open the tape on the top of the box.

Charles hummed unhappily.

“Schatz, we have a million other pictures of each other already,” Erik said. “If it means that much to you, you can put it in the pile of things to keep.”

He gestured vaguely off to his right, and Charles obligingly set the photo to the side before sitting down opposite Erik. A tendril of thought like an absentminded caress floated across the surface of Erik’s mind.

“What have we here?” Charles asked, peering into the box.

Flipping it open, Erik reached inside and pulled the first layer of the box’s contents onto his lap. “Looks like old notebooks,” he replied, frowning down at the covers. “Chemistry, Trigonometry, Advanced English, Spanish II.”

“That’s sophomore year, then!” Charles said enthusiastically. “We had English together. Remember?” Erik nodded, and Charles beamed at him. “I bet our old notes are still in there.”

“Do you think?” Erik asked, curiosity getting the better of him as he flipped the first notebook open and began paging through it.

“Well, it’s not like they’d have just walked off the page,” Charles reasoned, getting to his knees so he could hobble to peer over Erik’s shoulder. He pointed at a heading. “Look. _Great Expectations._ That would have been… halfway through first semester?”

Erik barked out a laugh. “Yes, before those god-awful grammar drills. What did she think we were, twelve year olds?”

“Actually, yes,” Charles replied apathetically.

Erik raised his eyebrows and turned to look over his shoulder. “So you had no qualms about reading our teacher’s minds? Saint Charles, who would never peek to see if we were getting a pop quiz in Chemistry?”

Charles rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t doing it on purpose. The superiority rolled off her in waves, especially when she’d grade during free reading time. I didn’t tell you because I thought you’d be mad.”

That was fair. Over the years, Erik had improved substantially, but back in the day, when he had been the poor sponsored scholarship kid in a private school full of rich brats, it had taken hardly anything to set him off on a tirade. Back then he’d had significantly less control over his powers as well. Knowing a teacher actively mused on his supposed inferiority would have inspired an exploded light fixture or a crumpled computer at the very least.

Once, after a snide comment from a passing upperclassman the first few weeks of school, the lockers had fused themselves shut. Erik hadn’t gotten in trouble by some miracle –probably, because by lunch they’d been put to rights again. That had been mostly Charles’ doing.

« _She was a very bitter old woman,_ » Charles said soothingly, pressing a kiss to the shell of Erik’s ear. « _She thought that about everyone. It wasn’t just you._ »

Out loud he said, “Go on. I know there are some good ones soon. Remember how we argued about Pip?”

“Yes,” Erik replied. “Because no matter how much he says he’s changed by the end of the novel, he gets no sympathy for being a dick to Joe for half his life.”

Erik thumbed through the worn pages slowly for a moment before stopping at a hasty splash of scribbles covering the top margins and spilling down onto the sides. “See,” he gestured. “I stand by my previous analysis.”

The pencil markings were smudged almost to the point of illegibility, but there were several phrases Erik could still make out.

“ _…ungrateful pipsqueak, pun intended_ ” stood out in Erik’s sharp, elegant print, while just under it, Charles’ already academic scrawl replied, “ _People do change, Erik. He obviously feels remorse… forgiven him as well.” _This was followed by Erik’s, “ _That’s because Joe… too nice for his own good_ … _walk all over him”_ and the argument stretched on, continuing in the margins of the next two pages.

“This is a better discussion than we ever had in class,” Charles said, his smile obvious in the words. “What else is there?”

With Charles “helping”, it was another twenty minutes before the rest of the box was sorted. Most things went in the toss pile, old tests and formula cheat sheets useless now, but the notebooks were salvaged after Charles’ petitioning. Erik hadn’t had the heart to throw them away anyway. Four boxes later, the toss and donate piles were rapidly filling with lecture notes, and action figures, and high school track team t-shirts, while the keep pile had just a few more keepsakes; more pictures and notes from over the years, a shark figurine Erik had made in a middle school art class, his college graduation cap.

They were about halfway through the sixth box (mostly college essays, some paraphernalia from the mutant rights group Erik had founded his freshman year) when Erik pulled up a handful of neatly bundled letters. A shock of recognition went through him and passed on to Charles, whose head shot up, concern creasing his brow.

“Is everything alright?” he asked, scooting back over from the keep pile where he had been leafing through a mutant rights leaflet.

Erik shook his head, as if dispelling cobwebs. “Fine,” he said.

Charles’ gaze flickered from Erik’s face, down to the letters, and back. “What are those?”

Erik swallowed. “They’re letters. From when you were in Oxford and I was in Laos.”

Slowly, so as not to tear the paper, he pulled the rubber band off the bundle set it aside to pick up the first letter. Charles sat beside him, huddling in close to read as well. It was dated early December four years ago, which was the year Erik had spent in the Peace Corps, the same year Charles started his PhD.

_Dear Erik,_

_Nothing much to report, as it’s the beginning of break and final results aren’t in, but its snowing outside, there’s a million Christmas specials playing on the television, Raven won’t be here for another three days, I might have drank one too many Scotches accidentally, and I’m being maudlin and I miss you so terribly I can hardly stand it. Although I don’t for a second regret that you’re using your talents somewhere where they’re so sorely needed, I don’t like that that place is so far from me._

_The world is so much more different when you aren’t near than I could have ever imagined. Sometimes it feels like I don’t quite fit correctly into my skin, like I’m trying to breathe but can never quite inhale. I try all the time to replay the way it felt to sink into your thoughts and feel them like a pulse all around me, vibrant, vivid and warm. No matter how much you object (you’re probably objecting now) your mind has always been the brightest and warmest I’ve ever felt, and it’s a privilege to know that I am the only one to truly see that part of you._

_I’m not saying this to make you upset, and I hope you aren’t. I don’t want you to leave where you are – I know you can’t, and anyway, I’ll be seeing you soon enough in a few weeks, so this might reach you when I’m already there and will therefore seem all the more ridiculous. Maybe we can laugh at it together, as I’m sure it’s the most ridiculous maudlin thing you’ve ever read in your life._

_But if I’m not there, I want you to know that the second I’m off that plane, I am going to catch your mind like a butterfly in a net, and then I am going to do the same to your body with my body, and I’ll hold onto you so tightly they’ll have to use a crowbar to separate us. Except, of course, they won’t be able to because you’ll melt the crowbar, and I won’t let go until I have kissed absolutely every inch of you and made you forget every single word in your impressive vocabulary except my name._

_There, now. That’s a promise I’ll make good on soon, if I haven’t already. My love, I will see you soon and until I do, and can show you in person, know that my every thought is of you._

_-Yours XOXOXOXOXO  
P.S. Bishop to D4, Bishop takes Rook._

“Oh, my,” Charles breathed, laughing a little shakily and burying his face in Erik’s shoulder even as Erik felt Charles’ thoughts wrap more securely around his own. 

“Don’t remember writing that, do you?” Erik asked, wrapping an arm around Charles’ shoulders.

“I think I blocked it out,” Charles said quietly. “I think I blocked most of that year out.”

Erik pulled Charles in closer until he was practically sitting in his lap; legs draped across Erik’s, breath tickling Erik’s neck. “As incredibly co-dependent it is to say it,” Erik murmured, “I don’t think I could stay away from you that long again.”

“No,” Charles agreed. He lifted his head up from where his nose was tucked into the junction of Erik’s jaw and neck, and Erik obligingly planted a soft kiss on his lips. “You know all of that is still true, though,” he continued when they pulled apart, his fingers sliding through the soft hair at Erik’s nape. “Yours is the most beautiful mind I’ve ever come across.”

« _I know_ ,» Erik said, pressing another kiss to Charles’ temple. “And don’t you forget it.”

Charles snorted, nipping playfully at Erik’s jaw before sliding off Erik’s lap. “We should read the rest of those when we get home,” he said, bundling up the letters again and crawling over to set them in the keep pile. “Maybe we could read your responses as well.”

Erik raised his eyebrows. “Really?”

Charles nodded, grinning. “I keep them in the hidden drawer of my desk.”

“Charles,” Erik purred, crawling over to him and nudging him down until he was on his back, bracketed by Erik’s arms. “I didn’t know you cared.”

« _Oh, didn’t you?_ » Charles asked, laughing as Erik began to assault his neck with feather-light bites and kisses.

Erik was just beginning to work on the buttons of Charles’ shirt when he found his hands being swatted away.

“Another time, I’m afraid, love,” Charles said breathlessly, beginning to sit up. “Unless you want your mother to walk in and discover one of your extra-curricular activities from the last six years of your schooling lying panting on the floor.”

Erik made a disparaging noise, but quickly sat back up, holding out a hand to help Charles as well. He’d just successfully readjusted the tent in his trousers to be less obvious when a soft knock came from the door.

“Yes?” he called out.

It swung open, revealing Edie carrying a tray with two glasses of iced tea balanced on top.

“I brought these for you,” she said. “You’ve been working hard up here.”

“Very hard,” Charles assented with a graceful smile.

“Thanks, Ma,” Erik said sheepishly, accepting an offered glass.

Edie set the tray down and surveyed the room, nodding in approval. “I thought I should let you know, I’ve got some potato soup that’ll be finished cooking in a few minutes, and some bread that’s almost ready to be taken out. You are staying for lunch, aren’t you?”

“Doesn’t seem like we have much of a choice,” Erik said affectionately.

“Of course not.” Then, suddenly, she glanced up at the closet, eyes widening and mouth falling open into a surprised smile. “Oh, the family pictures! I’d completely forgotten I put them up here!” She picked her way around Erik’s piles and over to the closet. “Erik, come here and help your old mother get this box down, I’ve gotta look through these.”

Erik sighed, standing anyway and retrieving the box. “Ma, I’m trying to clean up, not make a bigger mess.”

“Oh hush,” Edie replied, grinning at him as he set the box down on his bed. “Charles, you will love these. Erik’s baby pictures.”

“Baby pictures, you say?” Charles said, standing and smiling broadly at Erik, his eyes twinkling brilliantly. “I couldn’t pass this up if I wanted to.”

Luckily for Erik, they narrowly missed seeing the screaming naked bath photos when the kitchen timer announced lunch was ready. Luckily for Charles, he got to see them afterwards all the same. 


	15. Asteroid M

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> G, pre-slash, pining, Alternate Universe: Modern - Still have powers, canon disabled character, Characters: Angel Salvadore, Armando Munoz, Hank McCoy, Jean Grey, Raven Darkholme, Kurt Wagner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From a prompt by kageillusionz: "Charles and Erik in yet another coffee shop au"

“Oh my god, just ask him out.”

“No.”

“Ask him out or stop staring at the side of his head and mooning over him every time he comes in here. One of these days he’s going to notice, and then the egg is _really_ going to be on your face.”

“I’m not asking him out.”

“If you don’t, I’m going to give him your number on a napkin next time he comes in. Seriously, this is getting ridiculous.” 

“Angel, _drop it_ ,” Erik snarled, whirling around so they were practically face to face in the small back room of the coffee shop.

Angel stared straight back, arms crossed and expression supremely un-amused. “What are you afraid of? That he might say no?”

“I’m not afraid of anything,” Erik growled, turning back around so he could pull down a bag of medium roast beans, slinging them over his shoulder and somehow managing to elbow past Angel and back out behind the counter.

He flicked his fingers and a pair of scissors soared into his hand, narrowly missing Armando who was making a latte near the front. Ignoring Armando’s squawk of surprise, and with savage intensity, he hacked open the bag and lifted it again, pouring the beans into the mouth of the industrial-sized grinder and turning it on with another wave of his hand.

“Do you mind, Lehnsherr?” Armando asked, frowning over the top of the steamer.

Erik felt some of the tension in his shoulders melt away sheepishly. “Sorry,” he said.

Resting the small of his back against the counter, Erik breathed out heavily through his nose and most definitely did not look to the table near the wall behind him where he knew instinctively that Carmel Mocha With Soy Milk And An Extra Shot Of Espresso was still typing furiously away on his laptop, headphones in ears, dead to the world and completely oblivious to the emotional turmoil he had been inducing in Erik since he started coming here almost three months ago.

It had all began on a Thursday afternoon at the end of August when Columbia University resumed classes for their fall semester. Although Asteroid M, the trendy mutant-friendly coffee bar only two blocks away from campus was never strapped for customers, the school year signaled a happy increase in bedraggled students and frenetic, fast-talking professors rushing to and from classes and meetings. In short, people who were desperate for a well priced and well made pick-me-up.

Erik, who had attended Columbia University for all of two years before he’d had to go on a break to make more money, both enjoyed and disliked the influx in customers. Their presence irked in a way; an unavoidable and vivid reminder that they were doing what he could not – but so desperately wanted – to do. On the other hand, they kept him busy, and the teachers at least tended to tip well.

The scraps of conversation Erik caught also served to keep him somewhat in the academic loop, but it frustrated him to no end that he couldn’t join in the sometimes lively debates about the proposed Mutant Registration Act, or the anti-mutant technology being proposed by Bolivar Trask who, it was rumored, had friends in high places.  

Still, Armando, the owner of Asteroid M, had a strict policy of employees not bringing up “big issues” with each other during working hours, especially after another employee had nearly blown the front counter in half, fighting with his baseline friend about whether or not suppression collars were a reasonable alternative for those who couldn’t control their powers naturally. Alex was lucky he happened to be Armando’s boyfriend as well as his employee, otherwise he would have gotten much more than a stern talking to. As a result of Alex’s argument, Erik was unable to even chat with his co-workers about the issues he was most passionate about, and he certainly couldn’t jump in on customer’s conversations.

Of course, not all the talk was so serious. If Erik had to guess, a good seven times out of ten, the chatter tended towards complaining about professors, students, upcoming homework, or mountains of grading that still had to be done. With many of his fellow coworkers in school themselves, Erik often got an unwanted earful from Sean or Angel about how unreasonable this teacher was or how impossible that paper was going to be to write. Erik didn’t have much sympathy for them.

But, the added time-suck of class meant that Armando needed more help throughout the day. Erik quickly got in the habit of picking up every available shift, having already taken a full year off from classes and hoping to make enough to re-enroll in the spring.

It wasn’t therefore all that surprising that he was present when the door opened and the most beautiful creature he’d ever seen rolled quickly inside, flipping a piece of floppy brown hair out of unearthly blue eyes before making his way over to the counter.

“Hi,” the man had said to Erik in a surprisingly British accent, smiling brilliantly.

Erik miraculously smiled back before frowning quickly. He had a reputation to uphold, after all. If Angel caught him actually smiling pleasantly at a customer, he’d never live it down and he couldn’t quit. He needed the money.

The man glanced up at the board briefly before turning his smile on Erik again. “A sixteen ounce caramel mocha with an extra shot of espresso, please,” he said, reaching into a satchel hanging behind him for his wallet.

“Whole, 2%, Skim, Soy, or Almond milk?” Erik asked as apathetically as possible. He kept his gaze trained on the cash register, pressing the buttons with gusto when normally he ignored them completely, using his powers to ring up customers instead.

“Soy, please,” the man replied. “And might I trouble you for the Wifi password?”

“It’ll be at the bottom of your receipt,” Erik grunted.

“Splendid.”

The man was still smiling when Erik finally looked up to take his money and tell him he’d bring him his drink shortly. Thus ended their first conversation but as Erik glanced up at him periodically throughout the rest of the afternoon, taking in his expressive face and strongly muscled arms in between fixing drinks and wiping down counters, Erik became convinced it was the beginning of something beautiful.

Sure enough, a week later the man returned. He was sopping wet from the downpour outside but his smile wasn’t dampened in the least as he rolled up to the counter.

“Ghastly weather, isn’t it?” he said cheerfully. “I got caught in a cloudburst halfway here. Nothing like the smell of wet garbage to brighten your day.”

“You get used to it,” Erik replied.

The man perked up, if that was somehow possible from such an already perky person. “I hope so,” he said. “How long have you lived here?”

“Since I was ten,” Erik said, shuffling his feet a little awkwardly.

As much as he liked Caramel Mocha With Soy Milk And An Extra Shot Of Espresso, Erik was unused to small talk. It took a surprising amount of mental effort to figure out what to say next or if he should smile back, but luckily, he was saved the choice when the other man let out a chuckle. It was deep and soft, and it rumbled audibly through his chest and out of his mouth like velvet. Erik felt his stomach flip. He swallowed dryly.

“You must have nostrils of steel by now, then,” the man said. “What a pity, since you work in a coffee shop.”

Erik shrugged. “Even the smell of coffee loses its charm after a while.”

“I’m sure it must, sad as that is,” the man replied. “Speaking of, I’ll have the same as last time. Sixteen ounce caramel mocha, extra espresso, Soy milk.”

“Got it,” Erik said, already punching the appropriate buttons.

They went in on much the same fashion for almost a month and a half. They’d chat for a few minutes at the counter if there was no line; just small talk about the weather mostly, or the goings-on at the university. After enough dropped clues, Erik eventually pieced together that the man was in the sciences at the graduate school, since he sometimes brought lab reports and tests to grade. True, Erik still didn’t have his name, but at this point, it couldn’t be too long before they took that next step.

Everything was, well, _almost_ perfect. Then Angel, who only worked every other Thursday, finally noticed the unusual attention Erik was paying to this particular customer.

“Hey,” she said in a stage whisper, sidling up to Erik as he steamed some milk, feeling the wheels of the man’s chair working back towards his usual table in by the wall. “That guy’s cute.”

“Is he?” Erik asked.

Angel snorted. “As if you don’t know. What’s his name?” Erik shrugged. “You know he could be single. He’s not wearing a ring.”

“I know,” Erik replied biting his tongue almost instantly when Angel smirked.

“That’s what I thought,” she said, leaning against the counter as Erik continued to mix together the ingredients for the man’s drink. “So, are you going to ask for his number?”

Erik shot her a deadpan look. “Angel. He’s a customer.”

“Moira was just a customer. Now she and Sean are celebrating their – what is it? – two year anniversary?”

“Good for them,” Erik muttered unenthusiastically. “There’s someone at the counter. Can you do your job?”

Angel frowned. “If you think I’m letting this slide, Lehnsherr, you’ve got another thing coming,” she said, turning on her heel.

She didn’t let it slide, but luckily she didn’t interfere any more than shooting him knowing glances every once in a while and asking him how his boyfriend was every time they had a shift together.

Things continued as usual, then, the chats between Erik and the man growing steadily longer and more flirtatious, until a few weeks back, when everything had gone to shit.

The door dinged had open at three forty-five sharp, as it always did, and Caramel Mocha With Soy Milk And An Extra Shot Of Espresso rolled inside, but this time, the door was held open for him by another man, tall and burly and covered in blue fur under his cable-knit sweater and light jacket. For a terrifying handful of minutes, Erik had been convinced his dreams of asking the man out to dinner, or even of asking him his goddamn _name,_ had been dashed upon the proverbial rocks.

He’d been uncharacteristically short to his favorite customer, so much so that the man had actually looked somewhat hurt by the end of their transaction. Erik was even shorter with his blue companion, who ordered separately – small consolation though it was – and retreated to the small table, suitably cowed by Erik’s glare. As it turned out, Erik had had little to fear. The two men were soon joined by a woman with long red hair who ordered a tea before going to sit, opening a laptop and talking animatedly to the others about pig cultures and journal publications.

It had been a group meeting, not a date, and when the man left with his colleagues without even a backwards glance at Erik, Erik had spent the majority of the next week feeling miserable and stupid.

The next time he and the man met, Erik had made sure his expression was appropriately apologetic, even if he didn’t say the words out loud. He’d held the man’s eye contact purposefully, typing in the order with his ability, determined to forgo his usual escape route from that piercing gaze.

“Oh,” the man looked up in surprise mid-order, seeing his total already on the small screen. “Did you… did you punch it in when you saw me come in?”

Erik cleared his throat, inexplicably nervous. “Uh, no,” he said. “The buttons are metal, at least underneath, and I’m metallokenetic. I also manipulate magnetic fields.”

The man’s mouth dropped open, expression turning almost rhapsodic. “You’re a mutant?” he asked. Taken aback, Erik nodded. The man smiled brilliantly again. “Well, I shouldn’t really be surprised. This does seem to be a mutant haven. Manipulation of metal and magnetic fields, though. That’s brilliant!”

“Are you a mutant too?” Erik asked earnestly as he leaned a little closer over the counter.

The man nodded. “Telepath,” he said, adding quickly. “But don’t worry! The most I’d pick up from anyone without looking would be surface thoughts, unless, of course, they were shouting at me. I don’t just go around reading minds willy-nilly.”

“I didn’t think for a second you would,” Erik replied, and somehow instinctively, he knew it was the truth as well as the right answer. It earned him a brilliant smile, which he readily returned. And, if he let their fingers brush for maybe a fraction of a second longer than normal when the man handed over his money, well, so much the better.

By some miracle, Angel hadn’t been working that day; Alex had been there instead, but she had undoubtedly spilled the beans of Erik’s secret crush to the rest of the staff in some facsimile of well-meaning concern because when Erik came into work this morning, she was already there, elbow resting on the counter, smiling benignly at him.

“Afternoon, lover-boy,” she’d drawled.

Sean, whose shift was over now Erik was here, swept out from behind the counter in record time. “Sorry, man,” he said, clapping Erik quickly on the shoulder and offering him a grimace before he was out the door and catching the crosswalk.

Erik endured three full hours of knowing looks and cajolingly batted eyelashes that escalated as the four o’clock hour drew nearer. Nearly at his wit’s end, the door finally clinked open and the familiar metal of the man’s wheels drew closer from the discordant hum of the metal outside.

Barely containing his sigh of relief, Erik felt strangely light as he pretended to take the man’s order and ended up mostly just talking with him about his plans for the upcoming winter break. It seemed the man was headed to a family home in Westchester – at which news, Erik had been unable to keep the surprise from his face, making the man laugh and duck his head depreciatively. Erik had been just about to reveal his own successful re-enrollment to Columbia for that spring when Angel appeared over his shoulder, caramel mocha in hand.

“ _Erik_ ,” she began sweetly, “why don’t you take this to the gentleman’s table for him?”

“Oh,” the man had said, a faint blush spreading across his cheeks. “I suppose I probably should let other people order, shouldn’t I?”

“It’s fine,” Erik said immediately, but the man was already making his way to his table.

He snatched the mug from Angel and took advantage of the other man’s distraction to glare menacingly at her for interrupting. Angel actually had the audacity to look hurt.

“Take him the drink and sit down with him. Continue the conversation. Ask him out!” she whispered feverishly.

Erik practically snarled at her, but stomped away with the man’s drink anyway. By the time he reached the table, however, the man’s laptop was already out and booting up, and Erik could tell his window of opportunity was gone even as the man smiled gratefully up at him.

So it was that Erik found himself in a rather foul mood, staring up at the ceiling, ignoring Angel and Armando’s hushed conversation as they re-stocked the pastry display. Suddenly restless, he grabbed a rag from the sink and began to furiously clean the coffee machines and counter. All the while he thought very resolutely of how he wouldn’t fail next week, that in just seven day’s time he would have the man’s name, _and_ his phone number scrawled somewhere Erik would never lose it. Out of the corner of his eye, saw the man shift minutely, sitting up straighter and cocking his head almost as if he was going to turn and look straight at Erik.

Erik’s heart thudded in his chest. The man had said he wouldn’t read anyone’s mind, but was it possible Erik had been “shouting” at him, as he’d put it? Had the man heard everything Erik was just thinking – his confused jumble of affection, frustration, attraction, and bitterness? Erik licked his lips, staring as the man started to turn.

A split second later, however, the man paused and abruptly changed directions, turning instead towards the door, rolling back a little from the table. Confused, and a little apprehensive, Erik turned to the door as well, just in time to see a woman with beautiful, scaled blue skin step inside, an equally blue baby balanced on her hip. Erik’s eyes followed hers to the back of the shop.

“Charles!” the woman said happily as she weaved her way through tables to his side.

“Raven!” the man – Charles – replied, immediately holding his arms up to pull her and the baby into a hug. He kissed her cheek before she pulled away and Erik felt his heart cease to beat. “I thought you were still at the studio.”

Raven sat down in the vacant seat opposite Charles with a heavy sigh. “I was,” she said. “But then I got a last minute call from the modeling agency saying they’d messed up the dates and the guy won’t be in until _next_ Thursday. I told them never mind.”

“I’m sorry, love,” Charles said sympathetically.

Raven opened her mouth to continue, but she was interrupted by a shriek from the wriggling infant in her arms that appeared to be desperately trying to get into Charles’ lap. _His father’s lap_ , Erik mentally corrected himself, because it was so very obvious that this was Charles’ family.

“Ohhh yes, my darling,” Charles crooned immediately, holding out his hands for the baby and pressing an exaggerated, smacking kiss against its plump cheek when it was safe in his lap. The baby giggled, grabbing at Charles’ face with chubby, three-fingered hands. Erik blinked, swallowing hard. “Has Mama not paid you enough attention today?”

“I paid him plenty of attention,” Raven began, but again, Charles abruptly sat up straighter, cocking his head once more in Erik’s direction. “But you know how he gets when you – Charles?”

Erik looked away quickly, resuming his furious scrubbing of the front counter. Noticing a worn old piece of tape clinging stubbornly near the muffin display, he turned all his abrupt wrath upon it. It was deceivingly tenacious, and he was so absorbed, his thoughts so cacophonous, that he almost didn’t notice the wheels of Charles’ chair drawing closer.

Almost.

“Erik?” Charles’ voice was so tentative Erik briefly considered pretending he hadn’t heard, but of course Charles would probably just persist if he did.

“What.”

The weight on the wheels shifted, and somehow Erik knew Charles was gathering himself, although for what, he couldn’t say. The baby made a noise, and Erik looked up despite himself. He hadn’t expected Charles to bring his own son over for what would inevitably be a confrontation.

“Erik,” Charles began, holding the child up so it was standing on his legs. “I’d like you to meet my _nephew_ , Kurt. His mother is my sister, Raven, who is sitting at the table over there, much in need of a strong chamomile after her day, as I believe you heard.”

“Oh,” Erik replied dumbly. His mouth opened and closed a few times before he managed to add, “I see.”

“You see all of it?”

Erik swallowed and nodded once, quickly, hardly daring to believe his luck. “I think so.”

There was a slide over the surface of Erik’s thoughts, soft as the gentlest summer breeze, unobtrusive and gone far too soon, but it made both Erik and Charles smile all the same.

“I’d love for you to come and share a drink with us, but I’m afraid that probably wouldn’t make me very popular with your boss,” Charles said. “Would you be free for dinner after your shift instead?”

Erik’s grin widened. “Dinner I can do.”

“I look forward to it,” Charles replied, grin turning mischievous and _that_ was a look Erik could definitely get used to. Charles set the baby back down safely on his lap and reached for the rims on his chair. “Until then, I’ll be right here.”

And he was.


	16. Business with Pleasure

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> T, meet NOT-cute, Alternate Universe: Modern - Still have powers, complete crack

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Written for the anon prompt: "AU fic where Charles is the med student and Erik is an uncooperative patient, but Charles really needs it to go well for a grade."

Charles looked at the clock on the wall behind the nurse’s station and promptly rubbed his eyes with a weary hand. It was four am. His shift in the overnight ward was only half over and already he wanted to lock himself in a broom cupboard and maybe shoot up one of the stronger tranquilizers so he could have a moment’s peace.

Dr. MacTaggart, his favorite professor and mentor, had warned him the intern stage of getting a medical degree was the most grueling.

“Out of the textbook and into the fire,” she’d said. Even now, in Charles’ memory, her eyes glowed with a terrifying glint of schadenfreude. 

He should have listened harder. Not, of course, that it would have stopped him from taking this internship – Presbyterian U was one of the most sought-after hospitals in the entire state – but it might have caused him to be a little more practical with his drinking habits. Only just last night he’d gone out to the bar with some friends and his sister and had maybe a few too many margaritas. The most he remembered from the night the next day was the pounding in his head, like the pounding of the club’s music, against his shields, fragile with so many energetic and inebriated minds in close proximity practically shouting for attention.

And vaguely, in the midst of the mental riot, he remembered something else – some other, calmer presence at the far side of the dance floor; slightly spiky with something Charles couldn’t make out unless he delved deeper, but warm all the same. In fact, that mind was warmer than most Charles encountered, perhaps than _all_ others before it. He remembered making his way towards it, remembered flashes of a slow, sardonic smile and a broad chest beneath his wandering hands. He remembered a hot, insistent mouth and sculpted abdominal muscles that clenched and released rhythmically, just visible to Charles in the dim light of the men’s toilet as he sucked the man off.

He’d woken up in his own apartment alone, with a killer headache and the taste of death in his mouth, a note from Raven admonishing him for being such a lush next to a bottle of ibuprofen and a glass of water on the bedside. He’d be lying to himself if he said he hadn’t been disappointed both at the lack of another body with him and the apparent lack of a phone number anywhere on his person. Apparently the man in the club had chalked their connection up to alcohol and nothing more, and while a part of that stung – the part that remembered the slide of the man’s thoughts against his own, spiraling higher and higher as he lost himself in everything that was Charles – he guessed he really couldn’t blame him. A quickie in a club bathroom is hardly the beginning of fairytale romance.

So, at 10pm, Charles had come into work without complaint, carefully rebuilding his sore shields as was hospital policy. Usually it only left him wearier and slightly detached by the end of his shift, but his still-addled brain had thanked him for it today.

Sighing, Charles pushed himself away from the momentarily deserted nurse’s station and off down the hallway.

 _Only four more hours to go, Xavier,_ he told himself bracingly. _Just finish these rounds and before you know it, you’ll be another hour closer to freedom._

He took a deep breath and checked his clipboard for the details on his next patient. Room 269. Male, Caucasian, age 28. Admitted to hospital that evening complaining of, “Stiffness. Everywhere.” A slight fever upon admittance, but refused to accept blood test. The nurse who had admitted him thought maybe the stiffness was psychosomatic, but the man had no history of mental distress. Charles’ brow furrowed in concentration at the same time that his heart leapt into his throat.

A medical mystery. A bonafide medical mystery, and just by Providence it had fallen in his lap. Instantly, he was wide awake again, all traces of moroseness gone as he walked as swiftly as his legs would carry him towards Room 269, his white doctor’s coat billowing out behind him like swan’s wings.

The blinds were drawn when he got there, but to his surprise and delight, the light in the room was on and the patient in question was propped up in the bed, staring with unexpected interest at the television in the far corner as it played an infomercial for stainless steel knives. Turning on his best bedside grin, Charles knocked quietly on the doorframe before stepping through into the room. The man in the bed turned to look at him, traces of a smile almost imperceptible at the corner of his lips before a mask of indifference was raised in its place.  

“Mr. Lehnsherr?” he asked, holding out a hand. “I’m Dr. Xavier.”

Mr. Lehnsherr’s hand was large, warm, and calloused, his grip firm, and his hand lingered in Charles for a little longer than was absolutely necessary, a strange look on his face. Charles blinked. It was unprofessional to express attraction to one’s patents, no matter how high their cheekbones, how trim their waist, how piercing their gaze. As much as Charles appreciated the human figure – male or female – he had never had to struggle to remain professional at work. The patients that came to him were just that – patients: bodies that had something wrong with them that he had to fix. He appreciated the human soul in them, the person he was trying to help, but beyond that, at least during work hours, his interests had always remained pure.

There was something different about this man, though. Actually, the longer Charles stared, the more he thought he’d seen this man somewhere before somehow. He suppressed the thought quickly before it could be shown on his face and reined his already close telepathy in even tighter.

“Pleasure,” Mr. Lensherr said, his expression as unreadable as ever, letting go of Charles’ hands. Charles’ smile grew easier with the loss of contact.

“I’m afraid your previous doctor has gone home for the night, but don’t worry; you’re in safe hands. Full disclosure,” he added quickly, grimacing internally, “I should let you know that I’m a telepath, but don’t worry, Mr. Lehnsherr. I don’t peek.”

Lehnsherr smiled at that with all his long white teeth. “I’m sure you don’t.” His words curled out of his mouth from deep in his chest and the sound was so achingly familiar that Charles was convinced he had heard it before.

He wracked his brain as he looked at the clipboard, looking over Lehnsherr’s symptoms again. “So,” he said. “A fever, and stiffness in your limbs.”

“Yes.”

“Gotten any better over the last few hours?”

“Er, no,” Lehnsherr said, looking at him shrewdly. “And if you ask me for a blood or urine sample I’m going to have to say no as well.”

Charles frowned. “Mr. Lehnsherr – ”

“Erik, please,” Lehnsherr – Erik replied, sitting up straighter in his bed, an expectant look on his face.

“Erik…” Charles corrected, watching his face very carefully.

Charles had a death grip on his telepathy, caging it in so tightly he could barely even feel the brush of his patient’s surface thoughts. But this man was very obviously expecting something from him, although what it was Charles had no idea. Over the years, since Raven turned twelve and started barring him from her head, Charles had gotten much better at reading body language. Erik was sitting up in bed, attentive even as a slight smirk started to dance at the corner of his mouth the longer Charles paused. God, did Charles _know_ him? The name Lehnsherr didn’t ring any bells, but Erik… there was something familiar about Erik…

He cleared his throat. “Well, if you won’t let me take blood samples, have you had any other symptoms?”

Erik snorted. “Well, it’s a miracle I haven’t thrown up after–”

“Nausea?” Charles interrupted, head whirling as he ticked off symptoms on a mental checklist, narrowing down his diagnoses to a manageable number. The man didn’t lookespecially sick. Maybe a little tired, but it _was_ 4 a.m. after all. Charles doubted it could be the flu; even with the nausea and aching, and the man simply didn’t look it.

“Yes…” Erik answered, frowning at Charles now and leaning forwards. “But it’s the stiffness that’s really–”

“Polio?” Charles burst out rather unprofessionally, but the man was practically battering away at his shields with a sledgehammer and he’d been on high stress alert for almost ten hours now and the man just looked so incredibly familiar and obviously was so intent on getting _something_ out of Charles that he didn’t know what and it was driving him slowly insane not to peek.

Erik leaned back abruptly, completely bewildered. “What?”

“I mean,” Charles stammered, “have you gotten your polio vaccine?”

“Uh, yeah?” Erik replied cocking his head to the side, his mouth thin and eyes focused as if he were trying to work out a particularly difficult puzzle. “You… you think I have polio?”

“Well, if you’d let me do the blood work –”

Erik let out a short, sharp incredulous laugh, pressing himself back into the pillows to look up the ceiling briefly before his piercing gaze flickered back down to Charles’ surprised and annoyed face. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

“Remember you?” Charles asked, stepping closer and easing up just slightly on his shields despite himself. He still couldn’t read Erik’s thoughts but now he could easily feel the other man’s emotions washing over him – exasperation, embarrassment, attraction, fondness. Fondness? Charles’ jaw dropped suddenly.

“You’re the man from the club!” he said, grinning as recognition dawned. “I… hi.”

“Hi.” Erik smiled back, though he still seemed a little tense and unsure.

Charles went to sit down on the bed, but stopped himself instantly. He was still at work and Erik was here, now. Erik was a medical mystery. Charles suddenly remembered how serious the situation was and frowned.

“But you’re here,” he said stupidly. “You’re sick?”

Erik set his jaw, the faintest traces of a blush creeping up his neck and shoulders. “Er, no,” he said quietly. “I’m… I’m sorry. I thought you’d remember me when you saw me. After we – you know – and we went back outside to keep dancing, this guy and this woman came up and dragged you away. They said it was late and you had work tomorrow – today, that is. You told me you were a doctor when we were talking.” He blushed deeper, but held Charles’ gaze all the same. “I wanted to see you.”

Charles smiled softly again, letting down his shields almost completely so he could brush over the surface of Erik’s mind with a feather light touch. Erik for his part practically shivered, a lightning flash of arousal skittering through him and into Charles whose grin widened.

“And the symptoms?” he asked.  

Erik shrugged. “I made them up, except the nausea, but that’s to be expected after last night. I… might have tampered a little with the electronics in your thermometer. Nothing permanent, just enough to get admitted. Metallokenesis, remember?”

The pen in Charles’ coat pocket pulled itself suddenly free and began hovering and twisting in the air in front of him in a whimsical dance before floating back into his pocket.

“I remember,” Charles answered, haltingly recalling the way the door to the bathroom had flown open without touch and how the lock had fused itself shut sometime when Charles’ attention had been elsewhere. He had thought it brilliant at the time. He still found it brilliant and sent the whole bundle of thoughts to Erik who smirked. Behind him, he heard the door close quietly. “And the stiffness?”

Erik laughed. “That was supposed to be a joke,” he said, eyes twinkling. “Although I admit it’s a stretch.”

They paused for a moment, smiling stupidly at each other, Charles trying to process the ridiculousness of everything that had happened, and Erik a gentle, constant presence at the periphery of his mind.  
  
“Well, I think we should be glad the polio cleared up,” Charles said at last, and Erik laughed. “Although,” he added ruefully. “Now that I know you’re not actually sick, I’m afraid I can’t in good conscience let you stay.”

Erik shrugged, expression turning serious. “That’s all right. I figured as much.”

“However,” Charles said quickly, stepping up to Erik’s bedside and leaning down so they were face to face. “My shift is up in four hours and I’m sure by then I’ll be absolutely famished. If you have nothing better to do…”

Erik smiled and leaned forwards, tangling his hand in Charles’ hair to pull him in for a lingering kiss. From the timbre of his thoughts, Charles could tell Erik had meant to keep it chaste, but he promptly vetoed the idea, opening his mouth and resting his hand on Erik’s firm chest as he teased open his lips. A soft moan tumbled out of Erik’s mouth, and Charles would have killed to climb onto the bed and make Erik make that sound again and again. But, he reminded himself, this was neither the time nor the place.

« _Later_ ,» he promised the both of them, pulling gently away after one more soft kiss. « _Later._ »

“Right,” Erik agreed, nuzzling at Charles’ cheek briefly before sitting back against the pillows and allowing him to straighten up again.

“Good,” Charles said, running a hand through his hair to sooth himself as much as to smooth it back down. “Pick me up at the main entrance at eight?”

Erik nodded.

Charles smiled again, sending a telepathic caress as well as the ghost of another kiss across to him. “I’ll send a nurse in to get you released. Until later?”

Erik nodded, lifting a hand to wave goodbye and to open the door again. Finally having mustered enough willpower, Charles stepped away and exited the room, headed once more towards the nurse’s station, glancing at a clock as he went. 4:35am. He groaned. This day was going to be even longer than he’d anticipated. Still, he reflected with a grin, he couldn’t complain about what was waiting for him at the end of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> All jokes stolen from [this fuckin video](https://youtu.be/O4KyyPDRvLs)


	17. The Once and Future King

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt from cassiphrass: Charles and Erik visit Disneyland in which Erik steps up to the King Arthur sword and removes it from the rock. Charles is freaking out at him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Crack, ficlet, bickering, Modern AU - Still Have Powers

“You said you wanted a souvenir, Charles,” Erik said, and he actually had the audacity to look hurt, completely oblivious to the staring crowd of tourists and the small flock of security guards hustling towards them. The sword’s hilt dangled limply in his outstretched hand, still waiting for Charles to take it. “And Raven told me how you always used to watch Sword in the Stone together. It was one of your favorites.”

“Yes,” Charles hissed, his knuckles practically white from the grip on his armrests. “But I didn’t mean I wanted you to destroy a bloody _landmark_! Just buy me a little plastic one in a shop or something!”

Erik frowned, settling a hand on his hip in the way that always made Charles’ blood boil when they were having an argument, and today was no exception. “Plastic? Really, Charles? You married me so I could buy you _plastic_ things?”

“Actually, I’m having a pretty hard time remembering why I married you at all, at the moment!” Charles shouted.

His face was flushed – his cheekbones and ears felt hot and prickly with it – and the minds of the onlookers had gone from mildly amused or concerned to profoundly uncomfortable with his last remark. Erik, though, saw right through him as he always did. Instead of turning apologetic or even irate, he merely raised one unimpressed eyebrow, setting his shoulders and tilting his jaw upwards just enough to look flippant.

“Fine,” he replied. “If you don’t like it, I’ll put it back.”

Charles barked out a frustrated laugh and collapsed against the back of his chair to roll his eyes heavenward. “Please do!”

Without even looking, Erik floated the sword back behind him, giving Charles a pointed look as he slipped it back into the metal anvil he had pulled it from just moments before. It settled into its slot with a quiet wrenching noise like a rusty old door being closed. Charles sighed in relief.

“Happy?”

“Very much,” Charles snapped.

Just then, the gaggle of security guards reached them, their gaze sweeping back and forth between Charles in his chair and Erik standing defiantly across from him, his arms crossed over his chest.

“Is something the matter, gentlemen?” one of them asked, clearly unsure where even to begin.

“No, thank you,” Charles replied. “I believe it’s all been sorted.”

“Erm,” another guard added, “it’s illegal to use powers to deface or tamper with park property.”

Charles gritted his teeth, glaring daggers at Erik who finally was beginning to look a little discomfited, _thank you very much_. Serves him right, Charles thought bitterly, for making such a scene on what was supposed to be a nice, family vacation. He should turn away and let park security do with Erik what they wanted. 

But now that the small crowd around them was beginning to disperse and Erik was starting to feel duly ashamed, Charles felt some of his anger start to melt away. Besides, he could tell from the timbre of their thoughts that the guards were planning to ask them _both_ to leave, and he and Erik had only just arrived at the Magic Kingdom an hour ago. He hadn’t even gotten to ride the Space Mountain ride yet. He’d always wanted to ride Space Mountain.

<< _Well?_ >> Erik said. << _Are you going to let them throw us out?_ >>

Charles sniffed, folding his arms. << _I should_ ,>> he said. << _But just because I’m not going to doesn’t mean you’re getting off the hook. We will have words later._ >>

Erik nodded, chewing the inside of his lip. Satisfied, Charles reached out with a tendril of power and soothed away the security guards’ unease with a practiced hand. They swayed a little, like a group of four saplings in a high wind, and then, blinking, straightened up, looking around as if they couldn’t quite remember why they were all standing here.

“You have a nice day, sir,” the first one said, giving Charles a quick nod. He turned and led the rest of them away.

“Thanks,” Erik said quietly.

Charles didn’t deign to reply. Instead, he turned and began to roll himself towards the other side of the park. “Come on,” he called behind him. “If we’re lucky maybe we can make it to Tomorrowland without you getting us arrested.”


	18. Like Real People Do

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt from a prompt list: “You’ve been sleeping at mine because your house is being renovated and we aren’t even dating, yet every time you wake up to the baby crying and sigh, “I’ll go” I feel like we might as well be married”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rated: G  
> Tags: Character: Lorna Dane, Modern AU - Still have Powers, fluff, ficlet, dadneto, families of choice

“Really, honestly, thank you for letting me stay here,” Charles says for what Erik is sure is the forty-millionth time since he put Lorna to bed.

They’re sitting on the couch, ostensibly watching a documentary on manatees that’s playing on public TV, but ten minutes ago Erik also pulled out the chess board at Charles’ suggestion, and since then he, at least, has been focusing much more on the game. Or rather, he’s been trying to. He’s always found Charles distracting, but he becomes even more so when he’s really concentrating on something, like data from his latest foray into the lab or peer reviewing a paper for publication.

Or, playing chess at Erik’s house at 11pm on a Saturday night, his hair vaguely rumpled from where he’s been carding his fingers through it, and his limbs a little bit looser from the two beers they’ve both consumed.

Erik’s known Charles a little over a year now, since he moved into the flat opposite his and Lorna’s on the outskirts of Harlem. Lorna had been a newborn at that point, not even a month old, and her age on top of her bright green hair made her a magnet for attention. Not to mention she is the most adorable baby in the known universe – Erik is not biased, that’s a fact. Charles, of course, was no match for her charms, and one day, when they happened to get into the same elevator on the way up to the tenth floor, almost as soon as the doors closed, he began cooing at her.

“Oh, what a darling baby,” he’d said, smiling at Lorna where she’d been drooling against Erik’s shoulder. “Hello, sweetheart. Are you the one that couldn’t sleep last night?”

Erik had frowned. He was used to Lorna attracting comments from strangers, but that was a new one. In fact, Lorna _had_ been fussy the night before, but she hadn’t been that loud, or so Erik thought at the time. He shifted Lorna higher up on his chest.

“Sorry if we—” he began, but the man shook his head, his eyes widening suddenly.

“No, that’s not what I meant. You didn’t wake me up, she was very quiet. I’m a telepath.” His expression turned apologetic. “Normally I don’t read other people’s thoughts without being invited, but she was very upset. I’m sorry. I don’t think we’ve gotten off on the right foot.” He smiled slightly and offered a hand. “My name is Charles Xavier. I think you’re my neighbor. 107C, right?”

Erik nodded, considering, as he shook Charles’ hand. “Erik Lehnsherr. And this is Lorna. It’s good to have another mutant in the building.”

Charles’ expression had brightened considerably. “You’re mutants, too?”

“Metallokenesis,” Erik replied smoothly. Charles, he noticed, had very nice eyes. “But the jury’s still out on this one.”

Charles had laughed, smiling fondly at Lorna who’d blinked emotionlessly back. “Are there not many mutants in the building, then?” he’d asked, and Erik had spent the rest of the ride explaining about the two college students on the floor below theirs and Mrs. Blythe on the ground floor who were all mutants, which led Charles to explain about his position teaching Genetics at Columbia, and by that time, they’d reached their stop.

The conversation continued on outside their doors until Lorna had gotten hungry and begun to cry and they’d been forced to split. But ever since then, Erik and Charles have seen each other almost every day, whether for a few minutes in passing or sometimes, if they got to talking for long enough, over lunch or dinner or a drink in one of their apartments. Lorna had taken to Charles as readily as Erik, if not more so, and if it ever happens that Erik is in dire need of a babysitter for a few hours while working on a project for work, Charles is always happy to step in.

Because Erik never needs a babysitter otherwise. He has a few friends at work, but he hasn’t gone out with them for drinks since Lorna was born, and the only other person he has over besides Charles is his mother.

This is partially because being a dad is a full-time job in and of itself, Erik has learned, and he has no time to go and “put himself out there” as his mother says. It is also partially because Erik has been harboring a secret crush on Charles almost since they met in the elevator.

Erik really doesn’t have the time to be in a relationship, though, he reasons, which is why he has yet to make a move. He tells himself this as he watches Charles stare at the chessboard, casually running his pointer finger across his lips as he thinks. Charles deserves someone who can go out whenever the fancy suits them, who can be at his beck and call, someone whose every consideration is Charles first and not someone else, and Erik by default of being a parent will always have to think of Lorna first, at least until she’s old enough that she doesn’t need him to do basic survival tasks. Erik knew what he was signing up for when he asked for custody of his daughter when Magda was going to give her up. He wouldn’t change his answer now for the world, but that doesn’t change the fact that Charles deserves what he deserves.

“If you keep thanking me, I’ll kick you out,” Erik replies, but the corners of his lips twitch in a smile that gives him away.

Charles scoffs. “They’re re-doing _your_ floors next month, you’re going to need me eventually.” He moves his knight forward at long last before settling back against his arm of the couch.

Erik gives a non-committal grunt, and Charles frowns, giving Erik a considering look. “You seem distracted. Are you too tired to play? I know you’ve had a long week.”

Erik flaps a hand dismissively. “Lorna was only sick for a few days, we’ve both had loads of time to recover,” he replies. “I’m just thinking.”

Truthfully, he is a little tired, but he can tell Charles isn’t and he can’t quite bring himself to leave his presence yet to go to bed. Besides, Charles is ahead of him slightly in number of victories and his last move elbowed into a gap in Erik’s defenses that he needs to tighten up. They spend the next half hour or so in silence, the drone of the documentary white noise behind them as they play, and they’re well into the thick of it, still fairly evenly matched despite Erik’s flagging energy levels, when a faint cry emanates from Lorna’s room.

Both of them perk up, turning towards the noise. Erik lets out a quiet groan, scrubbing a hand over his face wearily.

“I thought she was feeling better,” he says. “She slept all last night and Thursday.”

Sighing, Erik begins to gather the energy to pick himself up off the couch, when he feels a hand rest lightly on his knee. He looks up and sees Charles shaking his head, kicking his discarded shoes out of the way so he can stand.

“No,” he says. “I can tell you’re exhausted. I’ll go.”

“I—” Erik begins to protest, but Charles shoots him another look, his eyebrows raised, and he changes gears. “Okay. If you need something—”

“I’ll let you know,” Charles says, making his way to the hallway. “And you should get to bed. Our game can wait until tomorrow. I know where the blankets are, I can make up the couch for myself. Goodnight, Erik.”

“Goodnight, Charles,” Erik replies.

His mouth feels strangely dry as he watches Charles disappear down the hall, and for a long time, he just stares at his wall, thinking. This actually isn’t the first time Charles has taken over for Erik when Erik was swamped – far from it, actually. Last February, when Erik had come down with the flu and his mother had been out of town visiting her sister, Charles had been over at his apartment every free moment, going home only to shower, grading papers out in the living room while Lorna played with her blocks and Erik tried not to vomit all over his sheets – again.

When Lorna had gotten sick with the bug twenty-four hours later, while Erik was still largely bed-ridden, Charles had been the one to walk in incessant circles around the cramped nursery, humming tunelessly to her, cleaning up her putrid diapers. Afterwards, when he’d been strong enough to keep down some toast and hobble into the living room, Erik had told Charles he deserved to be canonized. Charles had merely laughed, soothing a hand over Lorna’s back and said he hadn’t minded in the least. Erik had believed him. He still believed him now.

And suddenly, Erik realizes maybe it isn’t a matter of choosing between Lorna or Charles. Maybe there’s a third option. Maybe both of them could be equally important; both could be his priority, because maybe, just maybe, Charles has also decided to put Lorna’s needs before his own. Maybe they’ve already become a family without realizing it.

Two days after Erik had recovered from the flu, Charles had rushed from where he was grading papers in Erik’s arm chair to the bathroom where he’d thrown up, looking suddenly ashen, and for some reason it is this fact that is most prominent in Erik’s mind as he scrabbles off the couch and down the hallway to Lorna’s room. Charles must have known he’d get sick the second Erik had called him, and he hadn’t cared, he’d come and taken care of them anyway. And Erik for his part had spent the next few days running in and out of Charles’ apartment, making sure he had enough fluids, entertaining him with Lorna’s antics, making him single servings of toast.

Erik’s heart is hammering as he rounds the corner and peers into Lorna’s room. The small, space-themed lamp next to the changing table has been turned on, casting shadows of planets and stars around the room, and in the corner, by the crib, stands Charles. He’s holding Lorna close enough that she can burrow into his neck, murmuring softly to her as she hiccups against his skin, and swaying slightly like a pendulum.

“I know, darling,” he says, patting her back. “I know you don’t feel good. It’s okay. We’ll be okay.”

He must sense Erik standing in the doorway, because he turns, raising an eyebrow. :: _I thought I told you to go to bed,_ :: he sends, his mouth pre-occupied with making little shushing noises.

Erik nods, crossing the space between them in four long strides, watching Charles’ eyes go wide and his mouth fall open in surprise as they’re suddenly inches apart. :: _You did_ ,:: Erik replies.

He hesitates only until he sees Charles’ gaze fall to his mouth before cupping his hand to the back of Charles’ neck and leaning down, closing the last gap between them with a hard, lingering kiss. For a second, Charles is frozen in surprise, but it doesn’t take him long to recover, and as soon as he does he’s kissing Erik back, tilting his head just slightly to the side to deepen it, a quiet involuntary noise of protest escaping him when they’re forced to pull apart for oxygen a moment later.

“But I realized I didn’t want to go to bed alone,” Erik says quietly.

Charles blinks incredulously up at him for a minute, as if he can’t quite believe what he’s hearing, but suddenly, he smiles, slow and brilliant, and Erik’s stomach flops at the sight. “Well, I suppose, if you’re offering,” he replies, his eyes twinkling. “Let me finish here, and I’ll be in in a moment.”

“’Kay,” Erik answers.  He leans down and presses a kiss to the back of Lorna’s head, her soft, baby-scented hair tickling his nose, then drops another kiss to Charles’ lips on his way back up. “I’ll see you soon, then.”

“Soon,” Charles agrees.

Erik gives him a quick grin, and Lorna a quick caress, and he turns around, walking out of the nursery and down the hall to his room to wait.


	19. Say You Love Me By Fighting Me About Literature

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> From ikeracity's prompt: Charles works at a bookstore. Erik works at a bookstore across the street. They meet in a cafe in the middle somewhere, neutral territory, to discuss literature and how much they hate their bosses. (They also talk about one day opening a bookstore of their own but that's only after they've gotten to know each other for a while.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Modern AU - Still have Powers, friends to lovers, bickering, ficlet, literary analysis (sort of)

Charles can feel Erik’s already waiting in their usual corner by the time he’s outside the coffee shop, his wheel catching on the doorframe in his haste to get through the door and out of the December cold. He sighs in frustration, pushing heavily against the glass door with one hand while trying to maneuver the wheel out of the way with the other. His fingers are numb from the winter wind which makes the whole process that much more arduous but before he can get too frustrated, the door swings open of its own accord, sticking against the coffee shop wall as if compelled by an invisible force. Charles looks up and meets Erik’s gaze, tossing him a quick smile as he backs up and manages to finally roll over the threshold and into the warm, coffee-scented air.

The door closes automatically behind him as he rolls past the couches at the front of the shop towards the small table in the back. Erik watches his progress over a copy of Northanger Abbey, silent in every way except for his mind, which as always, is a steady thrum of activity, though Charles can’t tell what about, not without peaking.

His smile brightens as he pulls up to the table and sees Erik has already ordered his regular for him – a medium Chai tea and a raspberry muffin, which are resting on his side of the table, complete with a little silverware set and napkin.

“Erik, you shouldn’t have,” Charles says gleefully.

Erik grunts. “No, I really shouldn’t. Not when you’re having me read this tripe.”

“Well, to be fair, you have me reading some other tripe,” Charles sighs. Leave it to Erik to get right into it.

This week they’ve decided to go a different route from the one they’ve taken these past fourteen-odd months they’ve been coming here for their private book club. Normally, Erik and Charles will find a new release that both their stores are carrying and that both will allow them to check out. The policies at Hellfire Books and Comics where Erik works, are infinitely more strict about what can be borrowed than Charles’ employer, Cerebro Books, but so far they’ve managed to work it out, alternating fairly evenly between fiction and nonfiction titles and between who picks the book. They’ve made their way through thrillers, biographies, fantasy novels, and true crime, hardly agreeing on anything all the while, but last week, out of sheer frustration, Charles had suggested they try a new plan of action.

They’d been arguing about Jane Austen of all things. It was a subject they’d often touched upon, but somehow managed to avoid having an all-out fight about, thanks mostly to Charles’ near-infinite patience and Erik’s habit of moving through his literary criticisms at the speed of a rocket; that way comments like “some bad Pride and Prejudice status quo bullshit” got passed over fairly quickly. Last week, though, had been the tipping point.

They’d been reading a new society novel set in the nineteenth century that centered around a young woman who finds herself in an unhappy marriage and decides to have an affair with her husband’s butler. Charles hadn’t really enjoyed it, and neither had Erik – a rare agreement – but the real debate had begun right as they were both packing up their books, ready to move onto other conversation.

“I should have known how it was going to be, though, from the blurb on the back,” Erik had said, rolling his eyes heavenward. “‘A modern Jane Austen.’ It was doomed to be insipid, self-important, and superficial from the start.”

Charles had paused, book tucked halfway into his backpack. “What?”

Instantly, Erik’s expression had gone stony. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re an Austen head.”

“Well, I wouldn’t call myself that exactly,” Charles had replied, feeling defensive the way he did whenever Erik used that superior tone of voice, “but I do enjoy her books. And I’d hardly call them insipid and superficial. She’s one of the best-loved novelists of the nineteenth century, for God’s sake. Maybe the best loved novelist in all of history!”

Erik snorted. “That’s because people are sheep,” he said. “I doubt as many human beings actually enjoy Austen as say they have. They just pretend like they’ve read her because they want to sound important. Her prose is like looking in a stagnant, muddy puddle. There’s no life in it. There’s nothing of interest.”

“Okay, well, then who would you suggest instead?” Charles asked, trying to keep his voice at an appropriate decibel.

“Ideally, Charlotte Bronte,” Erik replied easily. “But since she lived thirty years apart from Austen and they weren’t really writing about the same time period… Thackery. Vanity Fair. Or anything Gothic, like The Monk.”

Charles had paused. Vanity Fair was one of his favorites, so he couldn’t argue with that. He’d also never technically read anything Gothic, The Monk included, so to try and start a fight about on that topic would be stupid. But Bronte… “Austen and Bronte were writing for two completely different purposes,” he said. “Austen was looking at society as a whole. Bronte looked at very–”

“If you are trying to say Bronte didn’t write society novels, you can kiss all the respect I have for you goodbye,” Erik had replied at once, and Charles stopped up short.

He saw that Erik didn’t really mean it, from the spark dancing in his eyes, and the smile he could see Erik trying to squash at the corner of his mouth. Erik got far too much pleasure getting a rise out of him; if Charles couldn’t tell from his body language, he could tell from the patter of his thoughts like laughter in Charles’ mind. It wasn’t mean-spirited necessarily, but it did make Charles’ pulse thrum with indignation and just the tiniest, faintest bit of attraction. So maybe fighting was a bit like foreplay to Charles; he knew he was hardly the only one who felt that way.

So, he’d proposed a deal. Erik would read Northanger Abbey, a Jane Austen novel constructed almost entirely to mock the Gothic, and Charles would read The Monk, which he’d never even seen before, though it was one of the most popular Gothic novels of its time – specifically, 1796. Erik had agreed, they’d shaken on it and now, exactly a week later, after each of their respective Saturday morning shifts at each of their respective book stores, here they are, sitting in the ironically named Common Grounds Cafe, ready to argue about literature once more.

“You didn’t like it,” Erik says. It’s not a question.

Charles shrugs, digging into his muffin as he pulls The Monk from his backpack. “I didn’t hate it. _All_ of it,” he says easily.

“But you did hate some of it,” Erik deadpans.

He’s obviously miffed, that their deal didn’t turn out a little better for him, but Charles can vaguely sense the tenor of his thoughts turning red and spiky with excitement for their debate. Internally, Charles crows with delight, knowing he’s not the only one who gets a kick out of their fighting. Externally, he allows himself a slow, smug smile.

“Three words for you,” he says. “Tit. Nibbling. Bird.”

Erik’s eyes roll to the ceiling at once as he sighs angrily. “You can’t judge the entire book by _one_ tit-nibbling bird, Charles,” he says vehemently, “that’s hardly even the most important part. What about Agnes kicking ass as the Bleeding Nun? What about Matilda? Talk about your strong female characters with social commentary, and this was ages before Austen.”

Charles barks out a laugh that instantly has Erik’s eyebrows arching. “What’s the social commentary? That women are either succubi or should be subservient to their husbands?”

“That– I– That is completely not the point! _Completely!_ ” Erik splutters.

He pauses, taking in a sharp breath through his nose and glowers across the table at Charles, who simply takes a large, sage bite of his muffin, chewing slowly while he watches Erik gather his thoughts. 

Knowing that Erik enjoys a good debate just as much as Charles does isn’t the only thing that keeps him coming back here every week, suggesting new books to read and listening while Erik gripes about his asshole boss Shaw regularly giving him back to back closing and opening shifts. That stuff is nice, of course, and Charles has never been one to turn down good work-related gossip – one of his few failings, he believes. But what Charles enjoys most about their time together is that Erik is completely unafraid of saying exactly what he’s thinking and feeling.

So few people are that way, and Charles would know. He doesn’t go digging through people’s minds all the time during conversation, and certainly he doesn’t go checking to see if people are lying to his face with every word they say, but there’s something about the tenor of people’s thoughts that doesn’t match up when they’re being insincere. It’s like a poorly rendered film, where the way the mouth moves doesn’t quite match up with the dialogue. It can be distracting for a telepath, and when he was younger, Charles frequently got confused, replying out loud to what the person was _thinking_ rather than what they _said_. That had gotten him into some bad scrapes on occasion.

Erik’s different, though. Charles never has to second-guess himself around him, because he knows Erik isn’t second-guessing either. Wherever he treads, Erik treads boldly and without apology. Sometimes, Charles knows, this gets him into just as much trouble as Charles had gotten into in the past by accidentally reading people’s minds. One afternoon almost three months ago, Erik had appeared in the cafe, heavily shouldering open the door and making his way to Charles and their table, head slightly bowed. When he plonked down into the chair opposite Charles, Charles’ heart had thudded to see the bruise blooming dark purple against his jaw. Charles had asked him, almost frantically, what happened, if he’d gotten into a fight.

“I went out last night and some guys were hitting on this mutant girl,” Erik explained. “Trying to get her to go home with them, ‘put on a show’ all that disgusting kind of baseline frat-boy crap. I told them to beat it and when they didn’t…”

“You beat _them_?” Charles asked, and Erik had laughed.

“Something like that,” he’d said.

Erik is always fighting something – his boss, his landlord, Charles, society as a whole. Charles can’t help admiring that about him. If nothing else, Erik isn’t a quitter, although that can kind of be annoying when he bull-headedly refuses to see sense about literary structure and the merits of unreliable narrators. Charles loves unreliable narrators; they’re so much like real life. Erik is exasperated by them to no end, and Charles can see why. For someone so startlingly genuine in everything, even his dislikes, Erik probably has a hard time connecting with the fallibility of the rest of humanity.

It’s that thought that makes Charles’ smile turn a little soft as he watches Erik think, though Erik is still glowering at him unforgivingly. The change in Charles’ expression gives Erik sudden pause, though, and something behind his eyes shifts uncertainly. He looks down at the cover of his book, breaking their gaze, and takes a quick swig of his coffee. When he resurfaces, his frustration has abated to be replaced by something else, equally intense but much less angry, that Charles can’t quite place without looking. The abrupt change makes Charles’ mouth drop open slightly in confusion, but before he can ask Erik what the problem is, Erik barrels on with his point.

“Agnes and Matilda both have tons of agency,” he argues. “More agency than any female in an Austen novel. Much as I like Catherine Morland” he drums his fingers against the cover of Northanger Abbey for emphasis “I can’t help but be frustrated by how intent Austen is on thwarting all her spirit.”

“You have to admit, she is being a little bit silly,” Charles presses gently.

Erik frowns again. “She’s eighteen. Her parents have never let her out of the house before. She shouldn’t be punished for being as innocent as she’s been forced to be.”

Charles sighs, sitting back in his chair. “I guess I can’t argue with that,” he says, smiling softly. “And Agnes, at least, does have a much tougher situation than Catherine ever did.”

“Thank you,” Erik replies dryly, but he’s smiling now, too, that same wide grin that he says drives away shitty customers, but can only seem to draw Charles further in. “You know, if we opened our own book shop it would probably be the most well-stocked, diversified store in the business.”

Charles laughs. “Now there’s a thought,” he says, eyes twinkling across at Erik. But Erik’s face has gone serious, his expression considering instead of joking, and Charles, who was reaching out for a sip of his tea, finds himself stilling. “What?” Charles asks.

“No,” Erik says, shaking his head. “It’s not a bad idea, actually. What if we did open up a store?”

“I–” Charles begins, but Erik cuts him off.

“You’re always complaining about Cerebro’s return policy and how many customers it loses you every year. And that the managers have ignored your availability so often you’ve had to cancel plans who knows how many times. And I hate working for Shaw, he’s a megalomaniac who thinks just because he owns some mediocre bookstore he can ruin everybody’s lives. I’ve been working for him since before I graduated, that’s four years too long,” Erik finishes.

He’s breathing a little quickly, and his eyes are shining with earnestness. He’s even leaning across the table, practically in Charles’ lap, and his thoughts are bright with all the sudden possibility that’s hit him with all the force of an oncoming locomotive. His enthusiasm is infectious, and Charles feels his own heart start to beat a little bit quicker as his mind whirls with figures and estimations, puzzling out just how possible this new dream might be. He chews his lip as he thinks, but the longer he stays silent the more excited Erik seems to become.

“I know you’re thinking the same,” he says, his grin turning almost feral in his exhilaration. “Money would be tight at first, but we could get funding from grants. I know you’d be amazing at writing them, Charles, didn’t you win a full ride to Columbia when you were there? And as for location, it’s perfect. We’re close to the NYU campus, and all their bookstores are overpriced. We could sell used, good quality books that people could actually afford. And nobody knows better about what’s happening in the publishing market than us; we’ve been following the bestsellers and new releases for over a year now.”

He slows down, looking almost pained for a moment before he reaches quickly across the space and rests a hand lightly on Charles’ wrist. Completely taken aback, Charles can do nothing but look down at it first then back up at Erik’s inscrutable expression.

“Look, I know it’s a long shot, Charles,” he says quietly, leaning even closer so Charles can hear him over the din of the rest of the patrons and the whirring frothers and espresso machines. “But you don’t want to be stuck where you are forever, do you?”

And then Charles realizes; for perhaps the first time, Erik isn’t quite saying what he’s thinking. It’s close, but the words don’t quite match up with his thoughts, which have gone soft and blue and the slightest bit shy. It’s not a normal reaction for discussing a purely business proposition, Charles realizes, and he wonders how he didn’t see this before. This thing burgeoning between him and Erik. He’d almost always had feelings for Erik since they met by a fluke at this very shop, each rushing for food on their shared but separate lunch break. But since Erik always seems so bold about speaking his mind, Charles had figured his feelings weren’t reciprocated, that Erik didn’t really notice them at all because Charles simply wasn’t on his radar.

Erik’s gaze is searching and so full of hope as he stares Charles steadily down it makes something in his stomach flip. His pulse races against Erik’s fingers, and vaguely, Charles wonders if Erik can feel the difference in pace, if the iron of Charles’ blood calls out as strongly to Erik as Erik’s mind does to him.

 _I’ve been such an idiot_ , Charles thinks to himself as he stares up into Erik’s pleading face.

“I… no,” Charles admits, smiling softly. “I have been hoping for something else for a while now.” He swallows hard, steeling himself for rejection before he turns his wrist so their hands are now resting palm to palm. “A couple somethings, actually.”

It might prove to be the stupidest move of his life, but if he and Erik are going to be serious about discussing this, about opening a business together, Charles wants to get all his cards on the table. Erik’s had no problem going for what he wants, maybe it’s time for Charles to does the same.

Erik’s mouth drops open slightly, and his gaze drops to their hands before shooting back to Charles’ face, searching cautiously for any sign of a joke. But Charles isn’t joking, and when Erik realizes this, he closes his mouth, though he still looks a bit mystified, shaking his head slightly as if to clear it of cobwebs.

“I… I’m not opposed,” he says at last, and Charles beams at him, feeling as if he might combust with happiness. Erik smiles back and squeezes Charles’ fingers with his own. “Actually, I’m very much in favor.”

“Good,” Charles says. “In that case, would you like to take this discussion somewhere a little more private? Perhaps… my place?”

Erik’s eyebrow raises, and Charles’ heart gives several loud, enthusiastic thumps as Erik’s eyes rake quickly over him, his tongue darting out to wet his lips. “Your place sounds good,” he says.

Already he’s stuffing his book into his bag. Charles very nearly laughs again at his eagerness, but that would be hypocritical; after all, he’s the one gulping down the last of his tea like a dying man. The water is so hot it nearly scalds him, but it’s worth it. All of everything that’s ever happened since he started at Cerebro Books will be worth it if he and Erik get to start something together. Something they can build for themselves.

“Let’s go then,” Charles says, slightly breathless, and when he pushes himself away from the table to roll towards the door, Erik is right next to him, a bright spot of warmth in both mind and body.

Charles can’t help thinking that that’s where Erik’s meant to be all along.


	20. In the Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the prompt from an anon: Cherik prompt for: Erik arrives to finally confess his hidden love to Charles but when he arrives at the mansion he witnesses Charles proposing to another in the garden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Character: Raven, Alternate Universe - Regency, no powers, confessions of love, misunderstandings, fluff and angst, proposals

It’s mid-morning by the time Erik pulls on the reins and stops Magneto up short outside the gates to the Xavier Estate. It was drizzly earlier when he’d first set off just after breakfast, but now the clouds are rolling away on a strong breeze, being replaced by a clear, azure sky. The weather, along with the feeling of easiness that always comes with returning home makes Erik’s heart beat a little quicker, a bit more hope and determination surging in his breast. He’s spent three long weeks at sea and another three full days traveling from London; he’s ready to put his feet up and have a nice, relaxing lunch.

But first, he has something else he needs to do.

Erik slides down off of Magneto’s back and grabs the reins once more, patting the horses’ roan coat as he leads him down the pebbled path and through the gate. Normally the gates are shut, although they only lock them at night, but Erik sent word ahead from the Inn and the gate is open so they must be expecting him home. His stomach gives a small lurch of anticipation, and he pats Magneto again, pretending it’s the horse he’s soothing and not himself.

He’s been gone for just over three months. A distant relative – an elderly cousin living in Germany – had died and make Erik the executor of his will, as he was the only surviving kin and the man had been a bit reclusive with few close friends. Erik hadn’t even known his cousin existed until he got the summons, and he hadn’t wanted to go when he had, but Charles had taken one look at the document drawn up by Lord Eisenhardt’s solicitor and shaken his head, a frown creasing lines into his forehead. Of course, Charles had insisted Erik go at once.

“You have a familial duty, Erik, and besides, you’re probably a beneficiary. It would be good of you to pay your respects to the man; you’re the only family he had.”

“It’ll take weeks, maybe even months to sort his estate out,” Erik had protested weakly while Charles leveled him with an unimpressed look. “I didn’t know the man at all, I doubt I’m hardly the right person for the job. And besides, your birthday is in two weeks and we were planning on going to Bath for the season.”

Erik had strategically left out the part where they’d also been arguing the Bath point for weeks now – Erik hated going out in society, but Charles loved going to the theatre and the concerts and balls. More often than not, Charles’ enthusiasm won out and they always spent a month or two in town when the revels were at their peak. But then again, most of that was on Charles’ dime anyway. The Xaviers were the ones with the townhouse near Milsom Street, and though Erik usually paid his own way for meals and concert hall tickets, every once in a while Charles would wave away his money and insist it was his delight to dote on Erik when he knew how grumpy it made him.

If anyone else said such a thing to him, Erik would have been affronted, but he and Charles had been friends almost from the cradle, and he’d been living with the Xaviers ever since his own parents were lost at sea when he was sixteen years old. He and Charles were long past any sort of effrontery over money. Erik’s father and Lord Xavier had been business partners and good friends, and it was out of this debt of friendship that Brian Xavier took Erik in when he was orphaned; not quite a man yet, but not quite a child either, and terribly scared and alone. Only three more years went by before Brian himself passed away, but he had been as good to Erik as if Erik were his own flesh and blood, and Erik had had the good fortune to find a family even after his was gone.

Of course, when they were young, Erik had thought of Charles as a brother anyway. They played together as children, and went to the same boarding school when they grew a little older, coming home to estates only a few hours’ walk apart during the holidays. They were each other’s first and best confidants, sharing all their deepest thoughts and wildest dreams. Charles had known since he was thirteen that his greatest ambitions lay in academia, and Erik had been his biggest supporter when Charles told him, a fact that continued on until this day.

Over the years, Erik had begun to think of Charles not as a brother any longer, but as a separate sort of part of him – not quite a carbon copy, but so close to Erik he almost knew Erik’s thoughts before Erik could voice them, and when Brian was gone and they were left alone in the sprawling Xavier Mansion, it had been only natural for them to stay together.

Before his trip abroad, it had been years since Erik spent a night under a different roof than Charles. Sometimes they even slept in the same room, dozing off halfway through a late night chess game or while Charles reads out loud from one of the scientific journals he insists on sharing with Erik, though Erik has always been much more interested in drama and literature; the more taboo the subject the better.

Lately, though, Erik has tried to keep that indulgence down to a minimum. It’s been proving difficult enough to be around Charles during his waking hours, having to squash down every little curl of affection that blossoms so brightly in his chest when Charles tilts his head back and laughs at something he’s said that Erik’s almost afraid you can see light shining out from behind his rib cage. Even more unbearable than Charles’ laugher is the jolt of lust that shoots down Erik’s spine when Charles lays a careless hand on his arm or the small of his back, or drags his tongue along cherry red lips in concentration or frustration or any number of other emotions. Charles wets his lips far more than any one person should, in Erik’s opinion – or maybe it’s just that Erik only notices when Charles does it, because against his better judgement he’s watching.

He’s been watching Charles with more interest than he should have for years now, since just before his fifteenth birthday, if he’s being completely honest. For a while he hoped his feelings would go away, that while they were studying for exams his mind would stop wandering to the deftness of his friend’s fingers as they scribbled out essays and formulas. He’d seen Charles scrub his hands tiredly through his own hair and imagined that they were Erik’s hands instead, threading through those soft, dark brown locks, massaging the tiredness around his eyes gently away with skillfully placed fingers…

It had been easier when they were still at school for Erik to bury his attraction to Charles by throwing himself into his studies; easier still when they both went on to university at Oxford, but at separate colleges – Charles to the sciences, and Erik to the arts. Back then, they’d shared an apartment, but their classes had been completely separate and they’d been surrounded by school mates and city dwellers, and Erik had been provided with plenty of distraction to keep himself out of too much trouble.

But they’ve been out of school almost two years now, living out in the country largely on their own. Only being in society for a few weeks each year is beginning to grate on Erik’s resilience. The mansion has become a sort of oasis for him where he can drink his fill of Charles’ company, retreating only when he must, and never for too long. Charles delights in spending time with Erik as much as Erik does with Charles – although almost definitely for different reasons Erik always tells himself in the quiet moments late at night when he allows himself to hope. They spend every meal together and play chess almost every day. When the weather permits, they go riding, or for walks, sometimes spending the entire day talking without even realizing it.

Although they bicker often and about almost everything under the sun, they rarely have all-out fights, and even those don’t last too long; they’re far too co-dependent after all these years for that. While he was gone sorting out Lord Eisenhardt’s will, Erik even wrote to Charles every evening before bed, and he received just as many letters back. Vaguely, as he leads Magneto around a bend in the path, Erik wonders if Charles got his last letter, and if he’ll have any inkling of what’s coming, thanks to the note Erik had included in the postscript about finishing the final novel in the stack Charles had insisted Erik bring with him for the journey.

Erik smiles at the memory, ducking his head as if the reason for his happiness is written scandalously on his forehead, but there’s no one out on this part of the grounds to see, even if it were, and Erik can’t bring himself to care. Charles had been very insistent when he’d forced the stack of books into Erik’s hands that he read them in that order, and while the command had been odd to Erik at first, he’d been far too busy making last-minute travel arrangements to bother Charles about the peculiarity.

Now, though, Erik understood why Charles had been so adamant. He’s never quite allowed himself to hope before that his feelings might be reciprocated. He’d heard whispers and derisive jokes made about men who are attracted to other men, but to his knowledge, he’s never met anyone who might share his same inklings, though to be fair, he’s never been brave enough to ask. But after reading this one, simple novel, the title – _A Year in Arcadia: Kyllenion_ – as unassuming as the plain brown cover, Erik finds himself for the first time in almost ten years believing that perhaps he’s not alone in his feelings.

Erik looks up, breaking himself from his musings, and sees the house looming close now that he’s passed the final bend in the drive. Its three storeys stretch up into the bright, cloudless sky, the turrets on each corner reaching like fingers toward the sun.The rose bushes are already in bloom, he can see even from this distance, their blossoms blushing red against the otherwise bland stone facade, and the handful of trees in the front yard which had barely been budding when he left are now flush with green. The sight of home loosens the last bit of doubt lingering in Erik’s chest and he quickly swings himself back into the saddle to ride the last few hundred yards up to the door, barely holding back his insane urge to whoop in excitement.

He reaches the door and dismounts again, bouncing up the steps to open the door and call for a butler to take Magneto to the stable, but before he can even get his hand on the door handle it swings open. His heart leaps in his throat and he looks up, a greeting already halfway out of his mouth.

“Cha– oh,” he says, heart sinking abruptly again when he sees not the face of his best friend beaming and welcoming him back, but the face of Mrs. Finley the housekeeper. She’s a very sweet, middle aged woman with kind eyes, and she’s been working for the Xaviers since he and Charles were boys, so he tries not to look too disappointed as he recovers himself, giving her a quick nod.

“Mrs. Finley,” he says. “Thank you for leaving the gate open. As you can see, I’ve arrived a little ahead of my luggage. Would you mind finding someone to take Magneto to the stables? I’d like to see Charles.”

“Of course, sir,” Mrs. Finley replies, giving him a genuine smile, and she pushes the door open a little wider for him to step through. “I’ll get Tom to take care of it right away, and have your things brought up to your room when they arrive. Master Xavier is in the back garden, along with Ms Darkholme.”

“Ms Darkholme?” Erik asks, surprised. Raven Darkholme is Charles’ cousin. She comes to visit at least once a year, and they’ve always gotten along quite well together, but Erik finds it a bit odd that Charles didn’t mention her coming in any of his previous letters.

Mrs. Finley nods. “Yes. She arrived a few days ago, just in time for the ball at Lord and Lady Townshend’s manor. The master told me she hopes to say for another week at least.”

“Ah,” Erik says, trying to ignore the way his heart sinks even further at the news.

He’d hoped to find Charles alone, and hearing not only that he has company but that the company will be there for at least seven more days is an undeniable blow. Still, he tries to keep his spirits up. If he’s right – and God does he hope he’s right – Charles will be expecting something anyway. There’s no reason for him not to find an excuse for the two of them to slip away, even for half an hour…

He gives Mrs. Finley a quick smile and a nod. “Well then,” he says, “I guess I’d better go and find them. Thank you, Mrs. Finley.”

“Sir,” Mrs. Finley says, bowing in acknowledgement as he turns and goes back out the door to take the side path to the back garden.

His shoes click quietly against the stone walkway and the noise somehow urges Erik on. Something doesn’t feel right about this situation. Raven is Charles’ relative, yes, but she’s also Erik’s good friend; Charles would have known Erik would only be pleased to know she was coming to visit. But on the other hand, why did Charles even offer to let her stay if he gave Erik that book, and knew Erik was coming home, coming back to him, immediately after he’d read it? Was it actually just some kind of random freak that he’d wanted Erik to read _that_ book last? Did the novel – with that relationship marked out boldly in dark ink against cream pages like it was nothing to be ashamed of – actually mean nothing to Charles beyond the superficial?

Erik quickens his pace, practically jumping the small staircase that leads down into the lower garden level, his heart beginning to race as he turns the corner, searching almost frantically for any sign of Charles. He takes a few more steps, then the breeze blows the sound of voices to him from further on, near the fountain, and he springs into action again. Following the noise, Erik takes one more flight of steps down and rounds a hedge, the voices so close he can almost make out what they’re saying; it’s definitely Raven, and definitely Charles – he’d know the sound of that beloved voice anywhere.

Slowing as he gets closer, Erik hears a laugh; Charles’ laugh, bright and a little nervous, and it makes Erik’s breath hitch. Only a large blooming lilac bush and a few feet stand between them. He pauses, taking a moment to smooth at his hair which has been tousled from riding, and to straighten his jacket and waistcoat. Raven says something low and encouraging, and unable to stand it any longer, Erik steps out from around the bush.

What he sees makes his insides instantly turn to ice, his heart freezing in his chest. For one long moment, he’s sure he doesn’t breathe.

Charles is on one knee, Raven’s left hand clasped in between both of his own. The expression on his face is so earnest, so full of hope that Erik can almost feel his own heart snapping in two at the sight of it. Charles’ eyes, such a distinct shade of blue that Erik hadn’t been able to forget them even for a moment in all the months he was gone, are soft and fond, and his voice trembles just a bit with nerves as he speaks. Erik’s only come in halfway through his speech, but it’s impossible not to know what’s going on.

“… my whole life. You’re my entire heart and my entire soul, and I can’t imagine a day when I don’t get to see you and talk with you and let you know how much I love you. These past months have been almost unbearable, and while I understand you had to go away, I’ve decided I don’t ever want you leaving again without knowing you’re taking my heart with you. Will you marry me?”

Distantly, Erik realizes he’s shaking. He feels sick, like he actually might collapse right here in the garden, fainting like a heroine in a novel. Charles is proposing to someone else. Charles just called someone else his entire heart and his entire soul. He takes one abortive step towards them, unable even now to ignore his need for Charles, then stops.

_I should run_ , he thinks sluggishly. His extremities feel numb. _I should run and take Magneto and never come back._

But it’s too late. The movement caught Charles and Raven’s eyes, and as soon as Charles’ gaze falls on him, Charles’ mouth drops open. He scrambles to his feet, eyes wide and panicked at the look on Erik’s face. Dropping Raven’s hand, he crosses the distance between them in four short strides, reaching out to brace Erik’s arms.

“Erik,” Charles breathes, somehow managing to sound relieved and concerned at the same time. “You’re home! I didn’t expect you until… Erik, are you all right?”

The question seems to spark some life back into Erik and he jerks suddenly away, stepping back so he can’t feel the warmth radiating out from Charles any longer. “‘M fine,” Erik answers, his tongue feeling almost too heavy for his mouth, but his response only seems to make Charles more agitated.

“No, you’re not,” he says. “You’re pale as a ghost. Raven,” he turns over his shoulder, “would you go and get us a glass of water, please?”

Raven nods, eyes almost as wide as Charles’, and she scurries off toward the house. Erik is about to turn and follow her, determined to be anywhere but near Charles at this moment, but the step he takes makes him stumble more forward than sideways and Charles lets out a quiet noise of frustration, grabbing his arm and tugging him towards the edge of the fountain. Once they reach the lip, Charles helps guide Erik down until he’s sitting on the cool stone, a hand still resting gently on Erik’s forearm.

“D– Erik. You look like you’re going to pass out. Did something happen on the road?” He asks the question unsurely, as if he himself is positive that isn’t the case.

“No,” Erik insists, trying to pull his thoughts together. “I just… I thought…” He trails off, unable to bring himself to finish _I thought you were mine_.

Taking a deep breath he turns to look Charles in the eye. It’s painful, and just before their eyes meet he thinks maybe it’s a bad idea– how can he keep his composure, looking Charles in the face? But when he does lift his eyes and their gaze locks, Erik sees a same kind of pain reflected back at him and he has to squash down the tendril of hope that begins to unfurl within him. Charles’ hand is still warm on his arm, the touch a little hesitant, but there all the same, and when he looks at Erik it’s as if he’s trying to read his mind.

“How much of that did you see?” he asks, frowning.

Startled, Erik’s mouth drops open and he reels back a little, but not enough to shake Charles off. “All of it,” Erik replies. “Everything. You told Raven that she’s your heart and soul and that you never wanted her to leave you ever again. And now I suppose I’ll have to move into town and get a job or begin investing like my father, and you and Raven will be married and go to Bath together and have children and… and play chess in the evenings and…” He’s rambling now, he realizes, and he breaks off, hoping Charles didn’t notice the tightness in his throat.

“That wasn’t all of it,” Charles says quietly.

The hand on Erik’s arm slides down to his wrist, Charles’ fingers curling snugly around the bone, and he tips his head, forcing Erik to look at him once more. He’s smiling, _impossibly_ Erik thinks, and his eyes are bright with excitement and nervousness. He chews his lip for a moment and Erik is unable to tear his gaze away, drawn to Charles’ mouth like iron to a lodestone. His pulse quickens against Charles’ fingers at the look on Charles’ face, his breath coming just a bit faster.

“You didn’t hear the first part,” Charles says seriously, his thumb rubbing gently against Erik’s skin. “Raven was.. helping me practice. I got your letter. Maybe it was a cowardly way to try and do things – to tell you how I feel – but I was scared and I’ve never done something so… I’ve never wanted something so much–”

“What?” Erik asks, hardly daring to believe his ears.

“It was for you,” Charles says, smiling slowly, and with his other hand he reaches up to cup Erik’s cheek. “Everything I said I meant for you, Erik.”

“But…” Erik flounders, reaching out to cover Charles’ hand on his wrist with his own. “But you said… you want to marry her. We can’t get married, Charles.”

Charles smile turns a little sad around the edges and he shakes his head. “No,” he agrees. “Not in the traditional sense of the word, I suppose, with a contract and a priest and all that. But we can be spouses to each other. We can still continue to live together, and spend every day with one another. All that matters is that we love each other that way.” He lets out a little laugh, biting his lip again. “This isn’t the way I wanted this to go. I had a speech planned.”

Erik laughs quietly, his body returning to him as he realizes that _this is real_. “I noticed,” he says, and he leans into the hand against his cheek. “I did, too.”

Charles looks up at him, his mouth dropping open in surprise. “You did?” he asks.

“I did,” Erik agrees.

Leaning forward, he rests his forehead against Charles’, their noses brushing softly together, and reaching up, he finally threads his fingers into Charles’ gently waving hair. Charles’ eyes slip closed and he lets out a slow breath that brushes across Erik’s lips. Erik lets his eyes close too, allowing himself to memorize the feeling of Charles warm and real against him.

“So,” Charles murmurs into the air between them. “Does that mean your answer is yes?”

Erik huffs out a small laugh. “Technically you didn’t ask me yet.”

“Mmm,” Charles hums. “Quite right. Well, then. Erik Magnus Lehnsherr,” he tilts his head, their lips brushing, “my friend, my darling. Will you marry me?”

Erik leans in the rest of the way, capturing Charles’ mouth in a slow, lingering kiss. Around them, the garden seems to come alive with spring – the birds singing in the chestnut tree and the smell of lilac thick on the air – but the thing Erik finds most beautiful in all of this is the quiet sound Charles makes when they break apart again and Erik whispers to him:

“ _Yes_.”


	21. A Tale of Two Bubs

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Princess Bride AU because I wanted one :33

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Character: Kurt Marko, Character: Logan Howlett, Character: Rogue, fluff and angst, Princess Bride AU, no powers

As soon as they reached the broken boulders, Kurt Marko was leaping from his horse, crouching to inspect the footprints that dented the earth like dough. They scattered back and forth between two large rocks, ending with a larger imprint a few feet out from one of the rock-faces. Whoever had made the prints was long gone, but the tale of what had happened to them was still evident from the surroundings.

“Someone has beaten a giant,” Marko said gravely, and before any of his men could speak, he swung back into the saddle and spurred his horse into action, taking them further and further into the wild landscape of Genosha.

Meanwhile, the Man in Black was still several leagues ahead of the riders, dragging Erik along behind him as they raced around rocky outcrops and hurtled bushes. His bound hands kept Erik from any kind of retaliation beyond digging in his heels and trying to slow their pace, but the Man in Black’s arm was like a vice just above his elbow, forcing him inexorably on, and after a while, Erik’s curiosity began to get the better of him. He ceased struggling as he thought. Presumably, this man had gone through a master swordsman, a giant, and a self-proclaimed genius in order to… what? _Rescue_ Erik? That seemed unlikely, given the animosity Erik could practically feel coming off him in waves.

But Erik was still alive, and that was something. Obviously, unlike his previous captors, the Man in Black wasn’t planning on killing Erik and starting a war between Westchester and Genosha. Perhaps he was planning on selling him off to the highest bidder. The thought should have repulsed Erik, made him struggle against his bonds, but he found that he couldn’t feel any panic or horror at whatever future that awaited him. Marko, the Man in Black; they were all one and the same to Erik. The worst had already been done to him. Nothing else in life could possibly bring him as much pain as losing Charles.

“You know the King will find you,” Erik huffed almost absentmindedly as they ran along. “I’m sure he’s tracking us right now. He’ll find you and he’ll kill you. Slowly. No one takes Kurt Marko’s precious property and lives to tell the tale.”

The Man in Black let out a mirthless scoff. “You’re counting on your dearest love to save you, then.”

“He is _not_ my dearest love,” Erik fairly snarled, sudden anger sweeping through him like lightning. He tried to shake free of the man’s grip but only succeeded in making those strong fingers dig in tight enough to bruise. Furious, Erik let out a sharp shout and tried kicking at the man’s legs to make him trip.

The Man in Black dodged easily and gave Erik a rough shake for his efforts. “Ah yes, I should have known you’re not capable of such a trifling emotion.”  

Erik opened his mouth to shout back a retort, but before he could, he found himself pulled up short and shoved down on top of a rock to sit. They had reached the tapering slope of the hill that led into a valley below, and beyond that, a dark forest that seemed to stretch for miles and miles. The Fire Swamp. Erik had heard stories of the horrors that lay in wait for anyone who dared to enter there, but again, the thought only filled him with a kind of calm resignation. Perhaps he would die in the Fire Swamp. And perhaps, if the Gods were good, he would meet Charles again in another world.

“But just so you know, Erik doesn’t die,” Logan said, lowering the book slightly.

Marie, who two seconds ago had looked ready to spring from her bed with anticipation – even though she was drugged to the gills with cold medicine – frowned at him, dropping the blankets she had clutched to her chest.

“What?”

“Erik doesn’t die at this time,” Logan clarified. He shifted slightly, crossing his legs. He didn’t know it was legal to manufacture chairs this uncomfortable, but there was nowhere else to sit and Marie was sick. Had been for the past three days. He could suffer through a few more hours of this for her, no matter how much she pretended not to be invested. “Just so you know.”

Marie rolled her eyes, shuffling back against her headboard. She pulled a tissue from her box and wiped her nose. “Gosh, ruin all the suspense, why don’t you. What’s the point in reading me a story if you’re just going to spoil it all?”

“Sass,” Logan warned, but she had a point and they both knew it so he merely paused to take a sip of water before lifting the book again. “Alright, where were we…”

“The Fire Swamp,” Marie prompted, much too quickly for someone who an hour ago was protesting being read a “kissing book”.

Logan grunted in thanks and began again.

Perhaps he would die in the Fire Swamp. And perhaps, if the Gods were good, he would meet Charles in another world.

“Rest, Your Highness. While you can. And don’t try any tricks.” The Man in Black rested a hand on the pommel of his sword. “I’m faster than you are.”

The movement drew Erik’s eye, and for the first time, he truly took in the appearance of his captor. At first he had thought nothing of the entirely black ensemble – wasn’t that what situations like these called for? – but the sword made a spark of memory flicker at the back of his brain. Set into the silver of the pommel was a large ruby, almost the size of Erik’s thumbnail, and circling it were two snakes, simultaneously eating and being eaten by each other. Something within Erik lurched as he remembered who was said to dress always in all black and carry a sword such as that; a man who surely was fearsome enough to have defeated a master swordsman and a giant, and certainly smart enough to have outsmarted that imbecile with the poison.

“You’re the Dread Pirate Roberts,” Erik breathed. He would have jumped to his feet at the revelation but he found himself momentarily frozen, his blood turning to ice in his veins.

The Man in Black turned, casting an appraising look at him. Those eyes were so piercing Erik felt pinned by them like an animal in a trap, and so blue they almost looked like… but Erik shoved that thought away before it could fully form. Wishful thinking would get him nowhere, least of all with this man. The Man in Black smiled, though the expression was more mocking than anything else.

“Got it in one,” he said, his jovial tone just as forced as the smile. “I’m at your service, sir.”

“Don’t mock me!” Erik shouted, finally finding the strength to jump up off the rock. “How dare you call me incapable of love when you murdered the only person I ever _could_ love!”

The man retreated just a half a step, an unreadable expression flickering across his face, but then he was pressing forward into Erik’s space, his jaw set and eyes flinty. “Don’t lie to me, Highness,” he said, voice dangerously low and even. “What is love without faithfulness?”

“You know nothing about it,” Erik snapped, stepping in closer so the Man in Black had to tilt his head back to keep eye contact. “Charles was my whole life, and I will never know another person as kind or as brilliant or as beautiful as him if I live until the sun goes out. When he died, _I_ died. What do I care what you do with me when you have already done the worst? When you have already made it so I will never hear his laugh again, or feel his hand upon my cheek, or look… look into his eyes…”

Erik faltered. They had drifted closer as Erik spoke, so close Erik could almost feel the man’s chest against his as they breathed, so close he could see the kaleidoscope of blue that were the man’s irises, so close he could see also that beneath the lacing of the man’s shirt there was a familiar, plain silver ring resting on a chain. Heart racing, Erik’s gaze flickered from the ring back up to the man’s eyes which he saw with a jolt of aching hopefulness were as wet as his own.

“Charles?” he whispered.

The man’s face – _Charles_ ’ face – cracked into a tentative but finally genuine smile. He didn’t stop Erik either as Erik raised trembling fingers to the mask and kerchief that obscured his hair. When they were pulled aside, and Erik saw Charles standing there, impossibly but undeniably alive, he spared no time in dropping the mask and kerchief carelessly to the ground to fill his arms with Charles instead, pulling him close and pressing their lips–

“AAAHHH _LOGAN_!” 

“You know, someday you may not mind so much,” Logan said, smiling over the top of the book at the lump hiding under the comforter. “But maybe you’re right, that part isn’t very important anyway. Let’s see we can skip ahead to… the Fire Swamp?”


	22. Paging Dr. Troll

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Tags: Character: Alex Summers, Crack, Modern AU: Still Have Powers, Doctors AU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From an anonymous prompt: Med School AU where Charles and Erik get partnered together and have totally different opinions about what to do. (Bonus points if the patient is another character you love.)

“All right, Mr. Summers,” Charles says in a cheery voice that sounds far too forced. He grabs Erik around the bicep and begins to pull him from the room. “My colleague and I will be back shortly and we’ll discuss your options for… the situation.”

Summers nods disinterestedly and he goes back to staring at the crime show playing softly on the tv in the corner. Just as well, Charles thinks. It had been hard enough keeping a straight face without feeling the amusement coming off Erik in stronger and stronger waves the longer Summers’ story went on. Charles gives Summers a final reassuring nod that he doesn’t see, and feeling the dam finally being to break, practically throws Erik out into the hallway. As soon as they’re safely outside, the door swings firmly shut behind them, and Erik bursts out laughing.

“Shut up!” Charles whispers frantically, even as he fights back a smile. “He’ll hear you!”

“No he won’t,” Erik replies, grinning, shoulders shaking. “And even if he does, what did he expect? Oh Christ, this is so exciting. Ruth has been asking me every day if there’s been a weird sex emergency yet.”

“You can’t tell her!” Charles protests. “Professionalism, Erik.”

Erik rolls his eyes and leans back to prop himself against the wall opposite Summer’s room. “Right, because you don’t tell _your_ sister everything interesting that goes on in the ER,” he drawls. “You’re a saint.”

Charles frowns as Erik raises an eyebrow at him, smirking. A nurse snakes her way between them, pushing an IV stand in front of her, looking harassed, but Erik doesn’t break the gaze. Feeling his cheeks heat, Charles swallows and looks away, annoyed at the little burst of glee that comes off Erik’s mind.

It’s unfair that Erik can make him feel such a range of emotions so effortlessly, especially when Charles has very little understanding of how he makes Erik feel in return. Ever since his telepathy manifested, Charles learned to keep both it and his emotions well under check. Not only had he accidentally influenced other people’s emotions before, when he was young and didn’t have as refined as control, but also, a base level of outward serenity from him is necessary to keep people comfortable. Mutant equality has come a long way even since Charles was a child, but telepaths and other mutants with more destructive abilities like radioactivity manipulation or plasma bursts, are still notoriously distrusted, even within the mutant community. Charles likes to remain approachable.

Not that Erik has ever shown any signs of being uncomfortable with Charles’ telepathy, but Charles doesn’t go digging, and apart from surface thoughts, Erik is distressingly difficult to read.

But all this wouldn’t matter as much, if it weren’t for two days ago when Erik kissed him at Angel Salvadore’s house party. Or maybe he kissed Erik. The whole incident is rather fuzzy in Charles’ mind up until the point when Erik’s lips slid sloppily and enthusiastically across his own, tongue tasting like beer and pretzels, hands fisting in Charles’ t-shirt. He doesn’t know how long they made out for, only that by the time Azazel interrupted them, staggering in through the doorway and announcing he was heading back home did Erik still need a ride, Charles’ jeans were uncomfortably tight and his brain felt like it was never going to come back down from its high.

“Shit,” Erik had breathed into Charles’ neck. “I’ve got that double shift tomorrow. Charles…?”

Charles had shifted off Erik’s lap - and when had that happened? - letting his hand linger on Erik’s shoulder for a moment longer before Erik stood up. “‘S fine,” Charles assured him. “Go home. We’ll… I’ll see you soon?”

“Yeah,” Erik had answered, biting his lip and looking inscrutably at Charles for a second that seemed to stretch into several eternities. Then Azazel made an impatient noise from the doorway, and they’d been drawn back to the present.

Except they haven’t talked yet. This is not a conversation Charles wants to have via text and apparently Erik feels the same way, since all Charles heard from him before their shift started this morning was a [ _We’ll talk tomorrow_ ] text last night. Still, the anticipation combined with Erik’s lock-box mind is keying Charles up more and more. What does Erik want? Has he, like Charles, been quietly crushing since the first day they met as residents? Does he want to date? Or does he want something more casual? Charles is baffled and notices he’s been staring at Erik for probably too long. He clears his throat and stares down at Summers’ chart.

“So, the x-rays should be in soon. Not that that will tell us anything new, but his insurance will need them, probably.”

“Probably,” Erik agrees, pushing off the wall and leading the way toward radiology. “Then it’s just a waiting game. We should open up a betting pool for how long the battery lasts. Rock paper scissors for who has to extract it?”

Charles chuckles. “No way,” he replies. “You’re the metallokenetic. Just turn the thing off and pull it out. Case closed.”

“Ohhh no,” Erik says decisively. “Mr. Scott Summers is not getting off the hook just because he happens to have a metallokenetic doctor. There’s a valuable life lesson here that I’m not going to deny him. That thing stays in until the battery dies.”

Charles laughs again. “You can’t be serious,” he says. But it’s clear from the way Erik raises his eyebrows at Charles again that he very much is. Charles frowns, stopping up short just outside one of the hospital break rooms. “Erik we aren’t his mother. This isn’t about teaching him a lesson, it’s about providing medical assistance.”

“I _am_ providing medical assistance,” Erik says, his expression beginning to harden, too. “I’m just not coddling him in the process. He put an un-flared vibrator up his ass like an idiot, he can suffer the consequences.”

Two nurses exit a room several doors down, barely sparing a glance at him and Erik as they pass, but Charles pulls Erik into the break room anyway, not wanting to have this debate in public. It’s one of the rooms for people working doubles, filled with two unoccupied bunk beds and a small bathroom, but no one’s in need of a nap or a shower today, apparently. They are remarkably alone. Charles flicks on the light and meets Erik’s disapproving eye.

“It’s not for us to pass judgement on our patients,” Charles says sternly. “We’ll get the x-rays, show them to Summers, then you use your powers to turn off the vibrator and pull it out. He’ll be back home in less than an hour.”

“No,” Erik persists, scowl deepening. “You don’t get to order me about how to use my powers. The vibrator stays.”

“If you’re so worried about proper sex education, you can give him a lecture!” Charles snaps back. “Give him suggestions of what to buy so he doesn’t end up back here again, but it’s unethical not to help him.”

“I’m not giving a patient sex toy recommendations,” Erik answers tersely.

“I don’t mean anything _personal_. You don’t need to tell him about any of your own… Anything about you actually-” Charles breaks off, flustered and angry at the blush he can feel creeping across his face again. “You know what I mean, Erik. You’re being an ass on purpose.” He tosses Summers’ chart onto a chair by the door and folds his arms, hoping for intimidating.

He doesn’t get it. Instead, Erik quirks a smile that seems to surprise himself as much as it does Charles. As soon as he catches himself, Erik shakes his head, rolling his eyes heavenward again and biting his lip, and it takes all of Charles’ not inconsiderable self-control to stop himself from taking a peek at what he’s thinking. Charles shifts his feet, re-affirming his stance, and frowns a little deeper to make sure the expression sticks as Erik looks back down at him. Erik appears to be reconstructing his own mask as well, the smile easing away from his mouth the longer he stares, though he can’t quite erase it from his eyes.

“We could always ask Dr. MacTaggart,” Erik says, referring to their attending.

“No,” Charles insists. “We can work this out for ourselves.”

“He’s not in pain,” Erik points out. “Its not as if I’m advocating to torture the guy.”

“No,” Charles agrees, “but I’m sure he’s very uncomfortable, and you could fix that.”

“I don’t know,” Erik muses, the smile beginning to slide back into place. He takes a step in closer, and Charles is helpless to do anything but stare, pulse beginning to race. “It could be really nice. We might actually be doing him a favor if we left it in.”

“That’s… that doesn’t seem ethical either,” Charles breathes. Erik takes another step forward and Charles relents, wrapping his hands around Erik’s waist, relishing in the warmth beneath his palms. “Erik, we’re supposed to talk _after_ work.”

“We can do that, too, but I want to kiss you now,” Erik murmurs, leaning down to nuzzle Charles’ cheek and drop a kiss to the skin there. “May I?”

In lieu of words, Charles turns his head, catching Erik’s lips before he can lose his nerve, sighing when Erik’s hands come up to cup his jaw. Erik takes another step in, crowding Charles against the door. The lock clicks audibly shut, and Charles’ hands migrate to the hem of Erik’s scrubs, rucking them up so he can trail his fingers across the jut of Erik’s hips and the small of his back. Erik makes a quiet noise of pleasure, and Charles smiles, nipping playfully at his bottom lip before soothing over it with his tongue.

Erik’s fingers are twisted in his hair, holding him close, his mind more open than it’s ever been. Carefully, with a palpable touch, he brushes across the surface of Erik’s thoughts, and Erik groans, kissing Charles harder, affection and lust pouring off him. Charles can feel Erik’s cock twitch against the inside of his thigh, and oh Christ, the scrubs were doing absolutely nothing to exaggerate that, absolutely _nothing_. He’s never considered himself to particularly care about size before, but he knows now that’s going to change. Except, shit they’re at work and _shit_ what if Erik only wants to sleep with him and nothing else? Charles doesn’t think he could live with that, if he let this go on. He needs to stop until he knows what he’s getting into.

Sensing some of Charles’ hesitation, Erik pulls back. “What?” he asks, frowning again in confusion. No one should look this handsome when they’re frowning, Charles thinks.

“Erik, I’m sorry,” Charles says, still not letting go of his waist. “First of all, we’re at work and the radiologist is waiting for us. Second… I don’t want this to happen at all if it doesn’t mean anything to you.”

Erik cocks his head. “I… What gave you the impression that it doesn’t mean anything?” he asks, pulling a little further back.

Charles can feel his face heating again. “Nothing,” he says. “But nothing told me otherwise either.”

Erik considers that for a moment fiddling with the collar of Charles’ shirt as he formulates a response. Looking slightly wary, he opens his mouth, abruptly closes it, then opens it again. “Charles, I don’t really date people,” he says quietly. Charles’ heart plummets, face falling, as Erik continues, “I’m not good at it. I don’t like it. I think it’s a waste of time.”

“Oh, well, tell me how you really feel,” Charles answers, pushing against Erik’s hips, getting ready to right his clothes and hair and step out into the hallway to pretend this never happened. But Erik catches his hands, while still stepping back to give Charles more space.

“No, listen,” he says, “I want to date you.”

“But you just said you hate it!”

“I know!” Erik sighs. “Look, you see how bad I am at this. I’m trying to explain, but it’s hard. Just. You should know what you’re getting into, but when I say I want to be your boyfriend, I mean it. You’re worth the effort, Charles. You’re worth fucking up and trying to fix it. You’re… I _like_ you. A lot. Okay?”

Stunned, Charles stares at him a moment. Finally, when he remembers how his body works, he squeezes Erik’s hands and stammers. “I- I like you a lot, too.”

“I’m not good at people,” Erik says lamely, and now it’s his turn to blush. “Or words, apparently.”

“I’ve noticed,” Charles says, smiling. He stands on tiptoe and leans in again to press a quick, dry kiss to Erik’s lips. “That’s okay. I like you regardless.”

“Thanks,” Erik replies, laughing.

Charles gives him one last fleeting kiss before breaking away and grabbing Summers’ chart. “But really, we should head to radiology,” he says. “I’d be surprised if Ororo hasn’t sent out a search party.”

“You still think you’ve convinced me about Summers, don’t you?” Erik says, half-exasperated, half-fond.

Charles turns over his shoulder, raising an eyebrow as he undoes the lock and opens the door. “Oh, I haven’t?” He starts off down the hallway, Erik falling into step at his side, as he sends, :: _What about if I told you we could probably sneak off to lunch early if we went with my plan. I heard MacTaggart say a few of the staff were ordering in from the deli down the street_.::

Beside him, Erik groans, and then his voice is in Charles’ head, surprisingly clear and distractingly fond. :: _It’s not you winning, Charles. It’s the pastrami on rye_.::


	23. Too Much Corn Pollen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Mutant Road Trip, Sick Fic, Calm Down Erik

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From tirsynni's prompt: Charles very calm about being sick on the epic roadtrip and Erik freaking out over every sneeze and cough. :D

Erik first noticed something was off when Charles was five minutes late coming down to breakfast. They’d agreed to meet at the diner across the street from their motel at eight-thirty, giving Erik a chance to shower after his habitual morning run and Charles a chance to go over the list of mutants from the Cerebro print-out before presenting his game plan to Erik. It was a routine they’d easily fallen into during the first few days of their trip and now, almost three weeks in, it made Erik more anxious than he would like to admit to find a sudden hitch.

He checked his watch for the third time in as many minutes, clenching his jaw tight as he wondered whether or not he should abandon his seat and go knock on Charles’ door to make sure he hadn’t overslept. But just then, he felt the metal frame of the door move as it was pushed open and the bell above it jangled and there, standing in the doorway, smiling apologetically at Erik was Charles. As he skirted around the other tables with less of his boundless morning energy than usual, Erik noticed the uncharacteristic dark circles underneath Charles eyes like bruises and some of the tension that had begun to ease from his shoulders with Charles’ arrival returned.

“Sorry I’m late,” Charles said, his voice more scratchy with sleep than normal. “Didn’t sleep very well last night and it took me a bit longer to sort through the data with a fuzzy head.”

“Are you okay?” Erik asked, frowning.

The waitress bustled over to their table to pour Charles some coffee, and Charles paused, smiling up at her politely and thanking her as she filled his mug and slid him a menu.

“I’m fine, thanks,” Charles said, giving Erik an unimpressed if sleepy look over the top of the menu as he raised it.

Erik tried not to feel a stab of irritation at the obvious lie and took a sip of coffee rather than pressing the issue. He let Charles peruse the menu in silence and a few minutes later, when the waitress returned to take their orders, Erik ordered his usual omelette, noting when Charles merely asked for a bowl of fruit and toast rather than the frankly alarming stack of pancakes that was his normal breakfast.

“Are you sure you’re feeling well?” Erik asked when the waitress left again with their menus. “You’re looking a bit peaked.”

Charles sighed and sniffed and took a sip of coffee before flopping the Cerebro file he’d brought with him down onto the table and flipping it open. “I know my body, Erik,” he said dismissively. “It was just a bad night. Now, then. We’ll be passing through Iowa today. There’s a woman in Cedar Rapids with an amazing mutation that relates to electricity, and another in Waterloo that can manipulate air currents, although how strong she is I’m not sure. Then there’s a man in Iowa City with a strength mutation, and a professor at the university in Ames, but I wasn’t able to read what he can do. I guess we’ll just have to ask.”

Erik nodded, surveying the map Charles had marked with coordinates; a handful of little red dots scattered across the state, so unassuming at first glance, but what they marked was the most incredible discovery in the history of mankind. Men and women just like them. Erik smiled slightly. This – finding their mutant brothers and sisters with Charles – this would never get old.

While Charles was going on about interstates and highways, asking Erik which routes he thought best to take and trying to plan where they would spend the night that night, the waitress came back with their food and refilled their coffee. Erik made a few more notes on Charles’ map before sliding it back across the table towards him and tucking into his omelette.

“The mutants I mentioned only cover half the state, but I think once we factor in driving time, plus the twin mutants at the Illinois border we still have to find, it’ll cover our whole day.” Charles sneezed abruptly into his elbow, paused for a second to recover himself, then sat straight up in his seat again like nothing had happened. “So I propose,” he went on, beginning to butter his toast, “we leave straight after breakfast and we should be done in Illinois and crossing the border before lunch.”

Erik raised a skeptical eyebrow, his fork frozen halfway to his mouth. “You sure you wouldn’t like to rest a bit longer? Since you slept so poorly?”

Charles flapped a hand, waving Erik’s words away like so much smoke. He suppressed a cough and took a bite of his toast. “I’ll nap in the car,” Charles said.

Only he didn’t nap in the car. They were so close to the town where the twin mutants lived that he needed to use his telepathy to locate their house just thirty minutes after they got in the car. And then, as they’d driven across the border into Iowa – the twins being a complete bust, of course, as it turned out they were only fourteen years old – Charles said the coffee from that morning was still keeping him awake.

By lunch they’d been rejected yet again by the housewife with a newborn in Cedar Rapids and were wending their way towards Iowa City when Charles, who had been staring absentmindedly out the window, suddenly sneezed so loudly Erik almost sent them careening into the ditch.

“Jesus Christ, Erik!” Charles shouted, bracing himself against the armrest and dashboard as Erik jerked them back onto the road, and immediately sneezing again.

“Stop sneezing!” Erik yelled back before realizing how nonsensical it was, but he was startled goddamn it.

Charles rounded on him, frowning. “I can’t stop, it’s a physiological reaction!” he sniffed. Then, after a moment, he settled a hand on Erik’s arm. “Are you okay?”

“Yes,” Erik said, trying to relax but still staring determinedly at the road. Charles sniffed again. “ _You_ obviously aren’t, though.”

Sighing, Charles let go of Erik’s arm and turned in his seat, digging around in the backseat, still sniffling. Erik tried very hard not to notice the way Charles’ cardigan and shirt had ridden up as he bent over to search, exposing almost the whole line of his lower back, or the way his hip nudged up against Erik’s arm as he jostled to and fro. Erik swallowed hard. But he didn’t move his arm.

“Oh, don’t tell me we didn’t pack any tissues,” Charles said wearily, giving one last great sniff. He turned around to face the front again, a frown creasing his forehead. Coughing, he wiped gingerly at his nose with the back of his hand. “Disgusting,” he muttered.

“We’ll stop at the next gas station,” Erik promised. They needed to fill up anyway.

The Iowa City man – who to demonstrate his powers, lifted Erik and Charles’ rental car right out of its parking spot like it was a feather – was a bit more promising than their previous attempt; he at least asked for their contact information and said he’d think about it. This was the same answer they got from the woman in Waterloo. All in all, it was one of their more promising days. Erik should have been excited – ecstatic, even. But with every mile they drove, Charles’ skin got paler and paler, until it began to get rosier and rosier. By the time they got to Ames, Charles had used up almost the entire box of tissues and they had to stop and buy more before they sought out their final conquest of the day – the university professor.

With the aid of his telepathy – although using it now seemed to make Charles more and more tired – Charles was able to zero in on the man’s house, and they walked up and rapped on the front door, Erik watching Charles carefully out of the corner of his eyes. He had a hard, determined look on his face that was made somewhat less fierce by the raw redness at the corners of his nose and the circles under his eyes, but still, he looked every inch a man not to be trifled with. It was an expression Erik didn’t often see on Charles’ face – at least in Erik’s presence, Charles was much more prone to smiling. Erik turned towards him, almost unconsciously, opening his mouth to say… he wasn’t sure what.

Something about the movement caught Charles’ attention, though, because he turned to Erik, raising an inquisitive eyebrow at him. Before he could say anything, however, the door opened to reveal a man in his late fifties looking unsurely at the both of them.

“Can I help you, gentlemen?”

The man hadn’t agreed to go with them. He was happy at his job, and he and his wife had strong ties to the community. But he thanked Erik and Charles for their visit and for showing him he wasn’t the only one of his kind in the world. His mutation was low-level empathy, and Erik could tell, leaving the house feeling a little floaty with happiness he was sure was not his own. It lasted all the way back to the car until Erik managed to shake himself a little, irked at the bleed-over.

“He can’t help it, Erik. It’s not like he’s hurting you,” Charles said, giving him a sidelong look.

“I like my mind to be my own,” Erik grumbled.

Charles sighed and said quietly, “Yes, I know.”

They got back in the car and began to drive downtown, looking for a hotel. The streets were packed with college students, laughing and shouting as they made their way through the streets and presumably to the bars; it was a Friday night after all. There seemed to be some kind of event going on as well, leaving no parking spot open along the roadside, and when they finally drove past a sign for a hotel, they had to drive another two blocks before Erik was able to find a spot to leave the car.

“I could have just moved someone else’s out of the way,” Erik said, turning to grin at Charles, who pretended to look offended but couldn’t quite manage. Instead, he just looked endlessly sleepy.

“Dinner?” Charles asked.

Erik shook his head. “Room service,” he said. “You look like death warmed over. I told you we should have stayed in Illinois.”

“I’m just tired,” Charles replied. He grabbed his suitcase from the backseat and tissues from the front and got out of the car, leading the way to the hotel, Erik hurrying to catch up.

The hotel, as it turned out, only had one room available for the night. There was an event going on – the Iowa State homecoming – and the majority of the rooms had been booked for weeks, while the rest besides the one Erik and Charles managed to snatch up were on hold for a wedding.

“Hell of a time to get married with that lot outside,” Charles murmured as they made their way to the elevator. Erik laughed.

As soon as they got to their room, Charles headed to the bathroom to take a shower and instructed Erik to order him whatever he thought best, so Erik kicked off his shoes and flopped down onto the closest bed with a menu, glancing at it half-heartedly and figuring he’d just order them both some kind of sandwich. He was tired. It had been a long day of driving with little to look at other than cornfields, and had been made longer still by Charles growing steadily more and more sick in the passenger seat.

Really, the longer Erik thought about it, the more he realized he should have insisted they pull over. Charles obviously was not feeling well no matter how much he tried to pretend otherwise. He’d been sneezing and coughing and blowing his nose all afternoon, and the circles under his eyes had only gotten darker as the day went on. The man was so stubborn he was going to march obstinately into his own grave one day. The thought sent a sudden spike of worry through Erik, and he sat up, shaking himself and reaching for the receiver to order.

Fifteen minutes later, Charles exited the bathroom dressed in a pair of ridiculous striped button down pajamas, scrubbing a hand wearily across his face as he padded over to the bed and flopped down, face-first. The worry that Erik had managed to submerge while flicking through tv channels surged up in full force again. They were on the same mattress, Charles’ head just inches from Erik’s knee; it would be so easy to reach down and begin carding gently through his hair, helping to soothe away a little of the tension from the day. Almost without knowing what he was doing, Erik lifted his hand…

And was saved by a knock on the door and a quiet, “Room service?” Charles made to move off the bed, but Erik beat him to it, pushing him gently back down onto the mattress as he rose.

“It’s my turn to get it,” he said, opening the door before Charles could protest further.

By the time he brought the bounty back to the bed, Charles had moved from being face down against the bedspread to propped up against the headboard. He was even rosier than he’d been before he went into the bathroom, his cheekbones and the bridge of his nose flushed with color in contrast to the rest of his skin which was pale as porcelain. Erik faltered, his shins hitting the front of the mattress. He was sure Charles was running a fever. He should offer to go find a drugstore and get him some medicine; Charles was certainly too stubborn to ask for it voluntarily. In fact, the longer Erik stood there looking at him, the more his nose began to crinkle with a frown.

“I can tell what you’re thinking,” Charles said, “even _without_ telepathy. And I’m fine.”

“You look horrible,” Erik replied bluntly, sinking down at the foot of the mattress and setting the tray between them. “You’ve been sick all day, admit it.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort,” Charles said, reaching for his turkey club. “It’s just a silly little cold. Hardly the end of the world. No reason to slow down our search.”

Erik frowned. “If you don’t take time to rest you’ll only get sicker. Then you’ll make me sick, and then we’ll really be delayed.”

The logic was apparently too sound for Charles who merely rolled his eyes and cleared his throat and took a bite. Soon afterwards, Charles diverted the conversation back to the potential recruits of the day, sounding almost exactly like his normal, optimistic self, apart from the scratchy throat and stuffy nose. He had high hopes that the Iowa City man, at least, would call them at some point, and Erik couldn’t bring himself to disagree and ruin Charles’ good mood. After dinner, Erik could see Charles’ eyelids flagging and was going to put his foot down and insist they go to bed early, but Charles turned the tv to some nature program, patting the space on the bed next to him in invitation, and began watching in earnest when the narrator spoke about the genetic changes that jaguars had gone through to get their camouflage.

“See? Just like us,” he said happily, smiling up at Erik.

Erik, leaning against the headboard, was wise to Charles’ ploys and was decidedly unimpressed by his attempt to divert once again. But he found another part of him was equally pleased to be sitting here next to Charles on the bed, so close he could feel the heat radiating off of him in the inches between them.

Ever since they met, Erik felt drawn to Charles in a way he’d never been to anyone else. Charles gave himself wholly to this new mission, his intense passion for the mutant cause shining through in everything he did, and his love of Raven – and yes, maybe even of Erik himself – there at the center of it. On the steps of the Lincoln memorial, Charles had told Erik that they were at the start of something incredible, and Erik in his habitual skeptical manner had been loath to agree. But after weeks of driving around the country with Charles at his side, Erik found he couldn’t be quite as pessimistic anymore. Yes, most of the people turned them down. At this point they seemed capable only of picking up gangly teenagers. But there were so many mutants out there, so many people like them. Against all odds – even with the war with Shaw looming – it gave Erik hope for the future.

He smiled tentatively back at Charles. The moment hung suspended between them. 

Then Charles let in a sharp breath and began coughing, hard and abrupt. Erik forgot about the warmth bubbling up in his chest, his expression growing dark as Charles hacked into his elbow, seemingly unable to stop. Trying to crush the nagging worry that got louder and louder in the back of his mind the longer Charles went on, Erik bounded off the bed and into the bathroom, grabbing a glass from the edge of the sink and filling it with cold water, bringing it back to the bedroom to shove in front of Charles’ face. Charles glanced up at the movement and grabbed greedily at the glass as soon as he saw it. Erik watched the line of his throat as he gulped down the water, choking a little bit at first, but continuing on until the glass was drained and his coughing had subsided.

Sighing, Charles leaned back against the headboard, his eyes closed, the empty cup resting in his lap. His chest rose and fell jerkily with his ragged breaths, and his forehead creased a little in discomfort.  

“Now do you believe me?” Erik said, the words coming out more angrily than he’d meant them to.

Charles shifted, his frown increasing for a moment though his eyes were still closed. “Thank you for the water, Erik,” he said quietly, his voice more weary than Erik had ever heard before.

Frustrated, Erik lurched forward, dropping down onto the bed again and raising his hand to Charles’ forehead. The skin there was hot and feverish, and Erik clenched his jaw, letting out a soft, mirthless snort. At that, Charles finally opened his eyes, his mouth a tight, thin line.

“I don’t know what you’re mad at _me_ about,” Erik said, a little taken aback by the expression on his friend’s face. “You did this to yourself, Charles.”

“Not entirely,” Charles said with a note of bitterness. “Now would you please get your hand off my forehead.”

Erik paused, frowning, confused and more than a little hurt by the tone. “Why?”

“Physical contact makes it harder to block out mental contact, it’s always been that way for me,” Charles replied evenly. “And I know how much you want your thoughts to yourself, so even though it makes me tired and yes has made me even _sicker_ today from doing it so much, I shield myself off whenever we’re together.” He paused, and Erik felt the bottom drop out of his stomach at the realization of what he’d done. “I made you a promise that I’d never enter your mind without permission. I’m going to keep it.”

Erik reeled his hand back away from Charles’ forehead, his mouth dropping open, though he had no words to express the warring thoughts in his head. Yes, he wanted his thoughts to himself, but not at the cost of Charles’ well being. If he’d known this was the price Charles would pay for not using his powers, he’d never have made Charles promise to stay out in the first place.

“I don’t want you to be sick,” Erik said at last.

Charles scoffed. “Well, neither do I. But you also don’t want me in your mind.” He said it as a fact: set in stone and inerasable. Erik frowned, trying to gather his thoughts.

“No,” he admitted. “Not all the time. There are things… things I’d like to keep private.” And he quickly squashed down the little voice that reminded him of all secret glances he’d stolen over the weeks, the insidious thoughts that crept in at night, wondering how Charles might look spread out underneath him, or hovering above, braced over Erik as he rolled his hips, driving into him. Erik swallowed.

Charles blinked at him slowly, looking a little bit like he was trying to catch up with the conversation. “Of course,” he said at last. “Erik, I would never be reading your mind constantly anyway. It’s mostly surface thoughts that I see – fleeting feelings and emotions. Anything deeper and I have to dig.”

Erik’s mouth dropped open again in surprise. So he’d been thinking about this wrong from the beginning. True, when Charles had first spoken into Erik’s mind, his power had been almost all-encompassing, echoing into every chamber of Erik’s brain as he fought to bring him back from the depths of the ocean. But as soon as they’d broken the surface, that presence had immediately receded. Apart from the time Charles had been trying to save Erik’s life, he hadn’t invaded Erik’s mind in an aggressive way at all.

“Oh.”

“Yes, oh,” Charles said, smiling ruefully. He shifted again, leaning towards Erik and resting a hand on top of his on the comforter. “Even if I wanted to do such things, which I decidedly _do not_ , your mind is far too precious to me to tamper with. I respect your boundaries, just as you respect mine by not manipulating my things unless I ask you to or not using your powers to burst into my room at all hours.”

Erik paused, bracing himself. “And if I wanted you to?”

“To what?” Charles asked, smiling for real now. His hand on Erik’s had not moved.

“To come into my mind. To not make yourself sick.”

“That would make me very happy indeed,” Charles said quietly.

“Then do it,” Erik replied at once, before he could lose his nerve. He took Charles’ hand off the comforter and raised Charles’ fingers to his own temples, the way he’d seen Charles do to himself whenever he was concentrating. “Not too much digging, of course. Just… just so you feel comfortable.”

Charles gave him an inscrutable look, searching Erik’s features as if looking for a lie. When he found none, however, merely seeing Erik stare determinedly back, he closed his eyes, bit his lip and dove in.

Erik could feel the second Charles entered his mind, and to his surprise, it wasn’t at all like the earnest, all-encompassing barrage of when Charles saved him from the water. This feeling was quieter, tentative, and laced through with nervousness.

:: _It’s okay_ ,:: Erik urged, hoping the sentiment was coming through if not the words themselves. :: _I trust you_.::

Outside their minds, Charles made a quiet, choked noise, and the presence in Erik’s head flared bright with joy, practically crackling with it, illuminating parts of Erik he didn’t realize he’d tucked so darkly and securely away. He didn’t know which of them leaned forward first, but he did know that a second later, his arms were filled with Charles as much as his mind was, their faces tilting inevitably toward each other and mouths pressing together in a surprisingly gentle kiss.

Erik wrapped his arms more securely around Charles’ waist, tugging him into his lap, letting out a quiet moan when Charles came more than willingly, wrapping his legs around Erik’s middle, turning his head to deepen the kiss. Inside Erik’s head, their thoughts tangled together as completely and contentedly as their bodies, yellow and warm with happiness, and when at last they were forced to pull apart for air, their thoughts at least stayed just as close.

“I wish I’d done that sooner,” Erik admitted.

Charles laughed, bumping his nose alongside Erik’s. “Now I’m really going to get you sick.”

Erik smiled, leaning down to steal another kiss.

:: _Worth it_ ,:: he said, and from the tenor of Charles’ thoughts as they twirled around Erik’s, it was clear Charles agreed.


	24. Puppy (And Kitty) Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: T  
> Tags: Modern AU: Still Have Powers, domesticity, getting together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From ikeracity's prompt: Charles and Erik live in the same apartment building, and Charles's dog is in love with Erik's cat and vice versa. They get separation anxiety if they aren't allowed to see each other, so Charles and Erik, even though they're always arguing and they never see things the same way, have to learn to get along (and eventually they learn to get along GREAT wink wonk).

It’s just past 9:30 at night by the time Erik finally shuts the door to his apartment behind  him, leaning wearily up against it and closing his eyes, taking some time to finally just _breathe_. He’s only been gone three days but it feels more like a week, having spent the last forty-odd hours running from meeting to construction site to meeting to construction site and finally running to catch his plane since the last meeting ran over and he almost missed it. He’s going to be unspeakably glad once the project in Chicago is done and he can go back to designing buildings here in New York. At least it’s Friday and he doesn’t need to go back in for two more full days.

From the bedroom, there’s a telltale thump and the quiet patter of tiny feet. Sighing, Erik pushes himself off the door and walks into the living room, rounding the couch just as Copper pads out of the bedroom, her ginger tail high and twitching behind her. Automatically upon seeing her, Erik drops his briefcase and suitcase and crouches down, picking her up so she can settle under his chin. He dips down and presses two quick kisses to the back of her head between her ears.

“Hey kitty,” he says. “Miss me?”

She purrs in response, brushing up against his jaw, turning into his hand when he brings his fingers up to scritch at the side of her neck.

“Come on, let’s get ready for bed,” Erik says. He brushes out with his power and picks up his luggage by the tiny screws around the edges, trailing it along behind him as he carries the cat into the bedroom.

Depositing Copper on the comforter with one last smooch, he goes into the bathroom to brush his teeth and try to wash off the medley of airport smell and backhoe exhaust that’s been clinging to his skin all day. The shower is a quick one, but once he’s freshened up he feels slightly more human and decidedly better about sliding in between his 1000 thread count sheets to finally get some shut-eye. He leaves the towel in the bathroom and goes back into his bedroom naked, heading to the dresser to take out a pair of clean boxers to sleep in. He’s just pulled open the drawer when he hears the thump of Copper jumping off the bed again.

She twines her way around his leg, meowing plaintively.

“Get back in bed, you crazy thing,” he says, pulling out a pair of underwear and attempting to put his feet through the holes. Copper, as is her wont, makes the whole process a lot more complicated by refusing to get out of the way, twisting around his ankles and licking at the back of his calves, seemingly oblivious to the fact that he could easily topple over and crush her with one wrong move. “Go!” Erik says, nudging at her with his foot.

But she doesn’t go. Instead, she leans in and bites his ankle. Hard.

“Fuck!” Erik yelps, flailing and falling – still naked – into the dresser. The lamp on the edge nearly goes tumbling off, but he manages to catch it just in time with a tendril of power.

Copper saunters off to stand in the doorway, looking incredibly unimpressed with the glare Erik turns on her. After a long moment of staring, she gives another series of pathetic meows.

“Why are you being such an asshole?” Erik asks, finally managing to pull on the boxers and then a pair of flannel pajama bottoms, but he feels like he might already know the answer.

“ _Meow_.”

Quiet dread begins to fill Erik as he pulls on a ratty old band t-shirt from college. “Don’t do this tonight,” he says warily, casting a longing look at the bed behind him in the mirror above the dresser.

“ _Meow_.”

“They’re probably already in bed!”

Copper’s tail flashes like a whip behind her and she jumps at the door frame, raking down it with her claws. Erik sighs.

“He was supposed to take her over here whenever he fed you,” Erik grumbles as he finally gives in and makes his slow way towards the front door again, not even bothering to put on shoes. “Surely you can’t be this upset when you just saw her a few hours ago.”

No such luck, of course. Having cottoned on to where Erik’s going, Copper ceases her protesting and returns to winding around Erik’s legs, purring, and generally getting in the way. If she knew what an impediment she was being to her own happiness she’d stop, but Erik imagines all she’s capable of thinking right now is _Daisy Daisy Daisy Daisy_ in an increasingly manic crescendo. There are times Erik wishes Charles’ telepathy worked on animals; that way maybe they could convince Erik’s cat and Charles’ dog that the other wasn’t dead every time they were separated for more than a few hours. As it is, both of them can hardly get a full night’s sleep anymore.

When Erik moved into this apartment six months ago, he’d had no intention of making friends with any of his neighbors. He never had before, after all; this was New York City, not small-town Ohio. Nobody brought over welcome-to-the-neighborhood baskets. On the day he moved in, in fact, most people had stepped around him and his little town of boxes in the hallway without a second glance or even a “hello”, which had suited Erik – who was very sweaty and exhausted – just fine. He’d managed to move nearly all the boxes inside when he saw a man in a wheelchair exit the corner apartment, a large Bernese Mountain Dog in tow as he rolled down the hallway.

At first, Erik hardly gave the man another thought besides tossing a glance over his shoulder to make sure the last few boxes were sufficiently out of the way for him. Without pausing to say hello, Erik had picked up another box and headed into the apartment, anxious to get everything inside so he could let Copper – who was out in her carrier in the hall – explore her new home while he unpacked. He’d set his box down in the bedroom and moved back outside, expecting to see the man and his dog long gone. What he saw instead when he got out in the hallway was the Berner laying flat on her stomach, her nose pressed up against Copper’s cage, tail wagging wildly as her owner tugged at the leash.

“Daisy,” the man had pleaded helplessly, “Daisy, _come here_!”

“What the hell do you think you’re doing with my cat?” Erik had asked, striding across the space and bearing down on the dog like a protective mother goose.

“We’re not doing anything!” the man protested. “Daisy’s just interested in her, that’s all. And get away from her, she’s not going to bite!”

Realizing maybe he was being a little bit ridiculous, Erik hesitated. “How do I know? I’ve never seen her before.”

“She’s very sweet and very good with other animals. I cat sit for my sister all the time and Daisy has never once snapped at anyone – human or animal,” the man had replied, looking personally offended at the mere thought.

Indeed, now that Erik had calmed down a little, it looked as if the man was right. With her big, dark eyes and almost dopey grin, the dog – Daisy – looked like she wasn’t capable of hurting a fly; her interest in Copper certainly didn’t seem malicious any more. Daisy hardly noticed when Erik crouched down next to her, peering into the cage and watching as Copper sniffed the air curiously.

When Erik first set Copper in the hallway she’d been hiding at the back of her carrier, but now she crept forward, not in the least bit hesitant as she drew closer and closer to the dog. As far as Erik knew, it was her first time seeing one. Normally Copper was skittish with new things, but this Daisy seemed to have made a good first impression – certainly the two pets seemed to like each other much more than their human counterparts. As if he were reading Erik’s mind, the man had chosen that moment to speak up again.

“I’m afraid our pets are much more forgiving than us,” he’d said, sounding a little chagrined.

Still mystified, Erik had merely grunted in response and stood up. “Well,” he’d said. “I guess no harm done.”

“No,” the man had agreed. He’d given the leash another tug then, managing to capture the dog’s attention. “We’d best be on our way. Welcome to the apartment. Come, Daisy.”

And at last, Daisy picked herself up and followed her owner down the hallway. Erik waited until the doors of the elevator had closed behind them before scooping Copper’s cage up and bringing her into the apartment. No need for any more scares. Erik had rather thought that would be the last he’d see of the man and his dog for a while, and for an hour, he was right. He was halfway finished unpacking the kitchen – pots and pans and cutlery flying through the air to their designated cupboards – when he heard a tentative knock on the door. Frowning, he’d spooled out his power to try and see who could have possibly been calling and paused when he felt the metal frame of a wheelchair. Perhaps against his better judgement, Erik’s curiosity had been piqued.

“Sorry,” the man had said when Erik answered the door, his chair carefully angled so Daisy was blocked from running into the apartment. “But we got done with our walk and she wouldn’t leave your door. I know this must sound terribly odd, but… is there any way we could see your cat again?”

And from there it had just spiralled. Erik had learned that the man’s name was Charles Xavier, that he taught genetics at Columbia University, and that he, too, was a mutant – an Omega level telepath, to be exact. Erik had also learned over the course of the next few weeks that Charles’ opinions on mutant rights were infuriatingly naive. Almost every day since their first meeting, they’ve found themselves driven together by their respective pet’s incessant whining, and almost every day they spend the entire time arguing and debating current events while Daisy and Copper cuddle together on the floor. After a few months, when it was obvious their pets were only becoming more and more attached, their discussions sprawled into other conversation, talking about their day-to-day lives and anxieties over take-out and beers, and once or twice, a game of chess. 

And somehow anymore, despite Charles’ infuriating optimism about the state of human-mutant affairs, Erik finds himself looking forward to their time together almost as much as Copper. Charles is naive, yes, but his optimism about the future of mutantkind is also oddly inspiring. For all that Erik is a self-proclaimed misanthrope and pessimist, a small part of him – one he is always diligent in burying far, far down where Charles cannot even accidentally see – hopes to see the future Charles dreams of. Things are far from perfect. In many places, mutants are still viewed as something to be feared and policed. But progress _is_ being made, not fast enough for Erik of course, but as Charles loves to point out, every day is a little better.

So, even though Erik would currently like nothing more than to fall into bed and sleep for the next fourteen hours, he’s not completely unenthused to be taking the now familiar trek down the hallway towards Charles’ apartment, Copper at his heels.

Once they reach the door, Erik pauses. It really is rather late, though he and Charles have started having to call on each other even close to midnight anymore, thanks to Copper and Daisy’s protests. Reaching out with his powers, Erik tries to see if he can feel where Charle’s chair is, relaxing when he finds it parked next to the couch in the living room and not next to his bed. Satisfied, he knocks on the door and smiles when he feels the metal ring on Daisy’s collar drawing nearer. By his feet, Copper meows again.

There’s a faint fluttering at the periphery of Erik’s mind – Charles being polite and letting Erik know he’s being monitored – but a second later the presence turns bright with recognition and just the faintest bit of pleasure.

:: _I guess I’m not really surprised_ ,:: Charles’ voice chuckles in his head. :: _Come on in_.::

With a wave of his hand, Erik opens the door and Copper goes bounding inside, nearly crashing into Daisy, who no doubt smelled them all the way down the hall and was waiting impatiently just inside the foyer, practically vibrating with happiness. Copper stands on her hind legs, the better to crane upwards and brush her cheek against the length of Daisy’s snout, purring madly, while Daisy sniffs at her.

Erik looks up from the pair and over to Charles, who sure enough, is stretched out on the couch, cuddled up under a blanket with his head resting on a throw pillow, watching a science program turned down low. He sits up when he meets Erik’s gaze, smiling and beckoning for him to come inside and sit down on the couch, moving his legs so there’s room. Picking his way around the lovebirds, Erik takes the offered seat with a sigh, stretching out his bare feet so they rest on the coffee table.

“I can’t believe we couldn’t get away with it tonight,” Charles says ruefully. “I took her over there for _three hours_ today while I caught up on grading. Three hours where they just laid on the floor.”

“Well, at least you tried,” Erik replies, scrubbing a hand over his face wearily. By the door, Daisy lets out a quiet woofle. “No funny business over there,” he calls in their general direction.

Charles snorts. “The time for that intervention is long past, my friend,” he says. “We’ve made our bed, now we must lie in it.”

“I _wish_ I was lying in my bed,” Erik says, and Charles laughs again. Erik turns to drink in the sight; Charles’ head tipped back, head resting against the arm of the couch, his dark hair flopping down into his eyes, red red lips and sparkling white teeth pulled into a delighted smile turned toward the ceiling.

“Oh, Erik, I have missed you,” he says, his smile turning a little soft.

Erik smiles back, warmth suffusing him at the fondness evident on Charles’ face. “It was only three days,” he says quietly.

“Three days is a long time when you’re stuck alone with these two,” Charles replies, gesturing to the cat and dog, who are now play fighting in the corner. “Look at them. So disgustingly in love.”

“Sickening, really,” Erik says, grinning.

They fall silent, watching their pets play in the corner for a while. It’s comfortable, sitting here together on the couch, the tv droning on in the background, nothing really going through Erik’s mind except contentment at finally being home and able to rest and stretch his legs. It’s the way they’ve spent countless nights these past few months, especially after they learned to like each other despite their political differences.

Not for the first time, Erik finds himself thinking quietly how much he could get used to this: cozying up on the couch with Charles after a long day, burying his nose in that mess of floppy dark hair just to breathe in the scent of his shampoo. Pressing a kiss just beneath Charles’ ear and hearing the noise Erik imagines would rumble up through his chest and out of that perfect mouth. After a moment, Charles shifts again,breaking the spell so Erik must sleepily struggle to return to reality.

“How was Chicago?” Charles asks.

Erik makes a noncommittal noise and flops his hand vaguely in the air. “Busy,” he answers. “Productive. Tiring. Everything looks like it’s on schedule, though.”

“That’s good,” Charles says. “I’m glad it wasn’t so bad as you thought it would be.”

“No,” Erik agrees, letting his hand drop back down to the couch, wrapping almost unconsciously around Charles’ ankle. “Not so bad as all that.”

Beside him, he feels Charles freeze, and for a second he’s unsure why. Then his sleepy, over-taxed brain kicks into overdrive and he realizes where his hand is still resting, his thumb soothing over the notch of Charles’ ankle bone. He drops Charles’ foot like it’s an asp, standing up off the couch, although he doesn’t back away any further. He isn’t sure where he’d go.

“Sorry,” he blurts out at once. “Sorry, sorry. Fuck, Charles, I’m sorry I didn’t… That was weird, I didn’t mean to–”

“It’s fine, Erik,” Charles insists, although he looks a little shaken to be perfectly honest. He pushes his hair out of his eyes with a slightly trembling hand, biting his lip and making it somehow even more impossibly red. “I’m sure you just… forgot where you were.”

“Yeah,” Erik says, though for some reason his heart sinks at how upset Charles appears to be. “That must have been it.”

The animals, who have noticed something is up, push their way between Erik’s legs and the couch. Daisy is looking back and forth somewhat anxiously between the two of them, and even Copper joins the party, jumping up onto Erik’s vacated spot and meowing up at him. Erik stares down at her, a plea in his eye for support, though he knows he won’t get it from her.

“It’s all right, pup,” Charles says, reaching out and giving Daisy a reassuring pet. He smiles tentatively up at Erik. “Sit back down. If Copper will let you, of course.”

Nodding, Erik sits, his back ramrod straight, though if Charles notices, he doesn’t say anything. He also doesn’t let on if he can hear Erik’s thoughts, clamoring probably incredibly loudly as he tries to think up a way to make sure Charles doesn’t think he’s some kind of weirdo, pretending his cat is in love with Charles’ dog just so he can let himself into Charles’ house late at night and sit on his couch and caress his ankles. Erik feels his cheeks heat and looks down at the floor.

Seeming to know Erik might need some moral support, Daisy turns to him, her mouth open and tongue lolling out in a dopey grin. She’s certainly happy enough to go back to wagging her tail, nearly knocking Charles’ remote off the coffee table in the process. Erik slides his fingers through the thick fur of her back, then trails back up along her ribs, his apprehension draining the longer he pets her. He can feel Charles’ eyes on him, though he doesn’t dare look up to meet his gaze. He doesn’t stop petting Daisy either, even when he senses Charles shifting a little bit closer, the couch dipping to accommodate him.

“What a pretty girl,” Erik croons to Daisy, whose tail wags harder.

“She likes you a lot, Erik,” Charles says quietly from just behind him.

They’re mere inches apart now, but still not touching. If he leans back a little, Erik thinks he’ll fall into Charles’ chest. He almost considers it, but he couldn’t even if he wanted to; he’s frozen, waiting for Charles to make the next move.

Charles doesn’t disappoint, leaning in a little closer so Erik can feel the heat radiating off his skin like an electrical current. He pauses, obviously building up some nerve, and when he finally speaks it’s to add, “I like you quite a lot, too.”

Erik lets out a strangled noise that’s half laugh, half something else. Though his mind is whirling a thousand miles a minute, he can’t quite find the words to express just how ecstatic he is that Charles feels the same way. In the end, he realizes maybe words aren’t necessary in this case. With one hand, he reaches off to the side and finds Charles’ fingers, lacing them together with his own, and Charles lets out a quiet breath, finally closing the distance between them, wrapping an arm around Erik’s waist and tugging him a little closer so his back is to Charles’ chest. Charles’ head rests on Erik’s shoulder, watching as he continues to pet Daisy, and when he presses a kiss to Erik’s cheek, and Erik can feel Charles’ smile against his skin.

Erik leans into the touch, dropping his hand away from Daisy’s fur so he can turn and face Charles at last. When he does, he sees Charles grinning brilliantly up at him, eyes sparkling with happiness and the faintest hint of a blush dusting his cheeks. It’s a sight that makes Erik’s stomach flip, Charles’ grin widening every second Erik spends staring at him, and suddenly he can’t think of a single good reason to keep from kissing Charles any longer.

So he does.

As soon as their lips meet, Charles sighs happily, tangling a hand through Erik’s hair to pull him closer, opening his mouth without hesitation when Erik’s tongue trails along the seam of his lips. Erik’s heart feels like it’s going to beat out of his chest, and when he senses the familiar tendril of thought just across the surface of his mind that means Charles is listening in, he doesn’t hold back from showing him everything he’s feeling; the excitement and joy and disbelief at suddenly being to do all the things he’s wanted to do with Charles for months and months, the amazement that someone as magnificent as Charles wants him back, how achingly good Charles’ mouth feels against Erik’s own and how desperately he wants more.

:: _Yes_ ,:: Charles answers, sounding just as far-gone as Erik. :: _Yes, darling, everything_.::

Erik moans into Charles’ mouth, moving a hand down to the hem of Charles’ shirt to begin shucking it off.

Which of course is the moment Copper decides to wind her way between them, stepping exactly on the wrong spot on Erik’s lap. She ignores Erik’s muffled yelp and the automatic jerk that nearly knocks her off him and that pulls him away from Charles. Instead of moving, she meows demandingly at the both of them, scandalized by the lack of attention she’s received these past few minutes when everyone else has gotten some. Annoyed, Erik glares down at her.

“Go bother your girlfriend,” he says, to which she merely purrs and moves off to rest against Erik’s thigh, kneading it daintily with her claws.

Charles chuckles, trailing his fingertips lightly up and down the side of Erik’s neck, dipping down to stroke along his collarbone. “Looks like I have a rival,” he says, leaning in to press a kiss to the opposite side of Erik’s throat.

Erik laughs. “Careful. She bites.”

“Mmm,” Charles hums against Erik’s skin. “So do I.”

Erik makes a noise that a distant part of him determines he will completely deny later. But for the present, most of Erik is concerned with pulling Charles closer, pressing countless, insistent kisses on every part of his skin he can reach and finally, upon Charles’ mental urging, picking him up off the couch and carrying him into the bedroom, making sure any and all non-human animals are out of the vicinity before shutting the door behind them.


	25. Reunited

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating G: AU: Modern No Powers, fluff, reunions, established relationship

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From nextraordinaire's prompt: Welcome home, dear! Would you mind writing a little something where civilian Erik picks up his soldier boyfriend from the airport? Make it as cute or as angsty as you may -- I wish only for reunions and maybe some tears, pretty please?

The air around Erik is humming with activity. People rush impatiently through the crowd just outside the arrivals gate, pulling luggage behind them or swinging briefcases, dodging the groups of families and friends waiting for loved ones that are too restless to wait in the seating area further inside the airport lobby. Outside it’s a typical winter afternoon in New York, the sky a steely grey that makes it almost indistinguishable from the sea of cement and concrete buildings. Inside the dim fluorescent lighting doesn’t really make things any cheerier.

Nevertheless, Erik feels as if something inside him, the emotion that had balled tighter and tighter deep in the middle of his chest over the past month, is starting to snap and break apart. He can’t stop moving, pacing a path from the pillar by the arrivals doorway to the chairs against the far wall and back with such determination that he’s surprised he hasn’t worn a rut in the tiles over the past hour and a half. It had probably been stupid to arrive this early, he thinks for the millionth time. He sneaks a glance at the nearby display screen and seeing _**KLM 7804 - At Gate**_ as he has for the past fifteen minutes, returns to pacing. It had been stupid, but he’d spent the entire last night tossing and turning, hardly drifting off for a second, and Charles’ flight was scheduled to get in at 9am anyway. He’d decided to leave two hours early to avoid rush hour. Now he’s just stir crazy. 

After a full twelve months without Charles he thought he’d be better at controlling his emotions, but if anything, he’s only gotten worse. The dull ache in his chest when he returns from a grueling day at work to an empty apartment and a cold bed had gotten less and less bearable as the weeks and months wore on. The Skype dates they’d managed to squeeze in almost every day did little to tide him over and mostly left him impatient and moody when Charles had signed off with a kiss and went to bed, leaving Erik with the whole rest of his day ahead of him - another day without Charles. The only consolation Erik had that really worked was that - Powers That Be willing - this would the last time either of them would have to suffer through this. Five years of dating, six years of active duty. As soon as he stepped off that plane, Charles was done. They’d both gotten through it somehow.

Another group of travelers comes spewing out of the doorway into the lobby, and Erik’s eyes immediately begin searching the crowd with a desperation he knows is plain on his face. But no such luck. People are exchanging hugs, amiable pats on the shoulder, making their slow way towards the exit. But no Charles. He pauses, watching, heart hammering in his chest despite how fiercely he tells himself to calm down, but as the latest crowd moves away, his stomach sinks further. His eyes flicker towards the arrivals screen again, but when he searches for it, he can’t find Charles’ flight number. It’s been deleted to make way for new arrivals. 

That familiar aching void in his chest begins to open with a sickening lurch. Had Charles somehow missed his flight? Gotten detained? For a horrible minute, Erik has visions of a faceless man in uniform blocking Charles’ way onto a plane, Charles’ expression sinking as he realizes he can’t come home.

Erik’s breathing goes tight and he reaches for his phone in the back pocket of his jeans, swiping it frantically open, looking for a missed call, a text, anything, but when he taps open the message stream with Charles all he sees is the last text, “ _About to board my connection in Amsterdam. Love you. See you soon._ ” About to board. There’s no way he’d missed the flight. He looks up.

And then he sees him. Charles, looking pale and tired but hopeful, dark hair growing out already from its mandatory buzz, arms at the straps of his massive backpack, just turning around the curve of the doorway and stepping out into the waiting area. His eyes begin scanning the room, mouth falling open slightly as he breathes expectantly, and Erik moves without thinking - without even registering that he’s moving - halving the space between them already before Charles catches the motion. His eyes go wide for a second as he takes Erik in, and then he’s sprinting too, shucking the heavy backpack from his shoulders to fall with a clunk behind him.

The tight, knotted thing in Erik’s chest explodes apart with a sudden crack, and Erik takes in a loud sobbing breath as he and Charles collide just outside the arrivals doorway, Charles’ arms looping around Erik’s shoulders and legs around his hips as he throws himself into Erik’s embrace. Automatically, Erik lifts him, holding him as if he weighs nothing, his face buried in Charles’ neck. Charles is suddenly so warm and real, Erik feels like he’s going to shake apart. His fingers are gripping so tight to Charles’ back he almost worries he’s leaving marks, but he can’t bring himself to care that much if he is. Against the side of his nose and cheek, he can feel day-old stubble from Charles’ jaw scraping his skin. He releases another sobbing breath and burrows even closer, breathing in the scent he’d missed so much.

One of Charles’ hands threads into Erik’s hair, the other going to the back of his neck, keeping him near, stroking his skin. Erik can feel Charles’ chest stuttering against his own, his breath tickling at Erik’s ear.

“Darling,” Charles breathes over and over when he finally finds the air to speak. “Darling, darling, darling. I’m back. I’m home.”

Erik pulls away just enough to look in Charles’ eyes and sees them red-rimmed and wet as Erik knows his must be. But he’s smiling, too, so brightly it makes Erik’s heart lurch all over again. This time though, it’s with pure unfettered joy, and he leans up just as Charles leans down, pressing their lips together in a hard, lingering kiss.

Charles’ hands go to either side of Erik’s face, cupping it gently, and he unwraps his legs slowly so that Erik can lower him gently to the ground, still trading long, sweet kisses. He presses Charles against him with a hand resting low across his back, and swallows the quiet, choked noise Charles makes, brushing softly at the wet tracks on his cheeks until the sound turns into more than half laugh.

A distant part of him realizes people must be staring. Let people stare, he thinks grinning against Charles’ mouth. He’s never cared less about what other people may think of him than at this moment.

“I missed you,” he says breathlessly in between kisses. “So much, baby.”

Charles laughs again. “I’d gathered,” he answers.

Sliding his hands down to Erik’s, Charles gives him one last kiss before twining their fingers together and pulling away, smiling up at him, eyes still just a little bit wet.

“Come on, love,” he says, taking a step backward and tugging Erik along without breaking their gaze. “Let’s go get my luggage and go home.”

“Yes,” Erik says, at a loss for anything else.

When they get to Charles’ abandoned backpack, he reaches down before Charles can and grabs the handle, slinging the pack over his shoulder and ignoring the way it slams painfully into his back as he gives Charles’ hand a squeeze and grins across at him. Charles smiles back and stands on tiptoe, leaning in for another kiss.

“So gallant,” he teases when they pull away. He runs his free hand down Erik’s chest to rest above his heart. “Thank you.”

“Any time,” Erik replies.

Hand in hand, they turn and begin to make their way towards the baggage claim.

“Mmmm,” Charles says, running his thumb over Erik’s absentmindedly. “But I believe this will be your last chance to be so selfless. No more army issue backpacks stuffed to the brim with dirty laundry. No more active duty.”

Erik’s grin widens. His thoughts drift to the small velvet box tucked into the corner of his sock drawer at home and the plain silver band resting carefully inside, his pulse jumping as he thinks of what it represents; the start of the rest of their lives _together_ , not torn apart by anyone else’s whims. Side by side every day, loving each other and fighting each other and just being _present_. Warmth bubbles out from the center of his chest all the way out to his fingers, laced with Charles’, and his toes. Suddenly, the day doesn’t seem so grey.

“Well,” he says. “I think I can find a way to live with that.”


	26. Poli Sci Romance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Rating: G  
> Tags: Character: Raven Darkholme, Modern AU: Still Have Powers, College AU, fluff, pining, getting together

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From coalitionofchaos' prompt: A prompt if you're feeling it - mature uni student Erik in a class Charles tutors, Charles being delighted bc this guy knows what he thinks and is not afraid to have an argument about it unlike most freshmen, and when realising part of the delight is attraction he doesn't feel too bad bc to be fair this guy is older than him and a (hot) dad type :>>

Charles is no stranger to teaching. As a third year PhD student, he’s already been a TA for five years; senior year of undergrad, two years of Masters work and two years of PhD which counted towards his funding. Some of the other grad students find the work to be a chore, and part of Charles can’t blame them. You don’t need to be a telepath, after all, to recognize the look in a student’s eye when they’ve completely tuned you out to instead think about all the things they’d rather be doing than sitting in your class listening to you talk, or to know when they’re texting under the desk, or when they’ve started browsing social media instead of taking notes for the test they’re inevitably going to fail next class. Other TAs choose to focus the majority of their energy on research and article writing, thinking to hell with students who don’t want to pay attention anyway. It isn’t an unfair way to respond to the situation, Charles thinks. **  
**

Still, personally, Charles remains generally unjaded about his work. This is mostly because as a telepath he also knows that most people are not as invested in the subject as he is. Gen eds exist for a reason, and by the end of term, he knows he’ll at least have broadened the understanding of a good ninety percent of his students, and even interested a few in pursuing more political science classes. A handful of students over the years have been engaged enough to ask some very probing and critical questions. Those sorts of moments are the ones Charles clings to with desperate fingers when grading time rolls around and it sometimes feels as if he’s drowning in a sea of red marks, wondering if half the class even bothers to listen when he opens his mouth.

Before this year, however, Charles has never met a student who challenged him openly in class. Freshman as a rule tend to be too unsure of themselves to speak so freely, and since Charles has only ever taught freshman courses - Intro to Mutant Politics and Intro to Ethics - freshman are what he gets. The chair, too, he’s inadvertently picked up on, makes some students feel as if they shouldn’t openly debate with him, a fact which frustrates Charles to no end. Just because he’s in a chair doesn’t mean he needs to be shielded from critical debate. 

As such, when he rolls through the door into his first tutoring session of the year on a sunny morning in September, Charles is in good spirits, though not terribly excited. The small pockets of conversation dotted across the room die out instantly as soon as he enters, and he smiles pleasantly up at a few of the students as he makes his way over to the desk at the front of the room.

“Don’t mind me,” he says. “We’ve still got a few minutes before class starts, then we’ll make introductions.”

There’s a slight pause as the students take this information in, looking askance at each other as if this is some sort of test. Charles ignores them and as soon as he gets to the table, reaches behind his chair to pull his laptop and notes out of his bag and set up. After a moment, a few people seem to decide it’s safe to take Charles at his word and the hum of voices starts up again.

Booting up his laptop, Charles lets their minds wash gently against his shields as they chatter away. He’d learned long ago it was impossible to keep _everything_ out, and if he tried, he’d probably be worse off than if he just existed as normal. There are of course rules for the use of telepathy in the classroom as there are for any other mutation. Charles is not allowed to read more than surface thoughts that he can’t block (he’s often wondered why this needed to be a rule to begin with because why would he _want_ to go digging in his students or professor’s minds?), any cheating or plagiarism he happens to pick up needs to be strenuously documented with even more forms than a non-telepathic teacher (another silly rule - no one at least has been stupid enough to cheat in his class), and of course when the time comes to defend his thesis, he needs to temporarily go on suppressants to ensure he isn’t cheating.

Opening his internet browser and PowerPoint, Charles takes another secretive glance at the room. There are thirty students in all for this section and it looks like all of them have shown up. Unsurprisingly for a morning session there are a handful of students still in sweatpants, vacant expressions on their faces, some of them sipping coffee as their tired, blank minds begin to churn awake. Others are already buzzing with energy, fresh as the morning and ready to begin classes, while still others remain somewhere in the middle, idly doodling away already at the corners of their notebooks.

He moves his eyes back to the computer screen to open the day’s presentation, mental fingers still slipping gently across the surface of the room, when they catch something that makes him pause suddenly, halfway through examining the slides. He glances up in the direction of the mind he touched and sees a student, noticeably older than the others around him, in the middle of the sea of desks and slightly to the left. He’s long and lean, sitting in his chair with impeccable posture for 9:27am on a Tuesday, reading a poster on the wall behind Charles. The students on either side of him are emphatically not morning people - one’s slumped back in their chair staring at the desk blankly, the other slumped forward over their crossed arms, ready to doze off at any moment - which only makes the man stand out more. His eyes are piercing as they scan the text on the wall, hands resting in front of him on the table crossed on top of each other, left index finger tapping the back of his right hand the only sign of any impatience.

That is, if you aren’t a telepath. For Charles, the man’s mind is an absolute riot of activity, coiled whipcord tight as the rest of him, shining and instantly, Charles thinks, _beautiful_. He releases a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding at the same time he realizes he’s been staring. Which of course is when the man chooses to notice as well. That piercing gaze flickers over instantly and locks onto Charles’, intelligent and direct. Charles swallows and quickly looks down at his laptop. 9:28. Fuck it, he can pretend like his clock is fast this once.

“Alright, then, everybody,” he says, loudly enough that the conversation dies down again. Students who’d been turned around talking to their classmates turn forward attentively. “Time to get started.”

**************************************************************************

Over introductions the first day, Charles learns that the man’s name is Erik Lehnsherr, that he’s a nontraditional student who’s working on his degree at NYU after ten years living in Germany, and that he does not like talking about himself. Over the next three weeks, Charles learns this isn’t because Erik doesn’t like talking. In fact, Erik loves talking. More specifically, arguing. Even more specifically, telling Charles in explicit detail just how much he and the textbook are wrong.

“I’m telling you Raven,” Charles says one night, flopped back against the lumpy couch in his apartment, phone pressed to his ear. “Today when we were talking about the Mutant Control Act of 1965 he looked like he was ready to fight the student who said it ‘wasn’t unreasonable’ to want to confine all mutants to one city district. I’ve never seen anyone go so pale so fast.”

“Good for him,” Raven replies. “I’d want to punch the brat myself.”

“Well,” Charles admitted, “I can’t pretend like inside I wasn’t appalled. But I think the verbal thrashing he got from Erik was enough to show him the error of his ways.”

He smiles to himself, picking at a threadbare spot in the upholstery and tries to tamp down the image of Erik earlier that day, thoughts and words sharp as daggers as he danced rhetorical circles around the bigot who’d only taken Intro to Mutant Politics because he wanted to show the “muties” he wasn’t intimidated. Sad, really, if you thought about it too deeply. But Charles had been far too distracted by the light coming off Erik in that moment to feel badly for the other student. He still was distracted, to be honest. Charles had actually caught Erik as he was heading out the door, the last of the stragglers.

“I wanted to thank you for your contribution to class today,” he’d said sincerely. “It was very insightful and well put, if a bit intimidating.”

Erik had given him that long, toothy, half-teasing smile he seemed to reserve for Charles alone. “Always happy to set the record straight for people like that,” he answered. “I know you need to be more tactful than I was, but even you must have been pissed off by what that kid was saying.”

“Off the record, I was,” Charles agreed.

He’d started towards the door, Erik following, and it swung open before he could even reach out as he’d known it would. As in all things, it seemed, Erik was very matter of fact about the use of his powers, and matter of fact about Charles’ disability. Charles had never caught any fleeting thoughts from him, wondering if he should help, or half-sorry, half-curious feelings about why Charles was in the chair and what it meant for him physically. On one occasion, they’d run into each other while Charles was struggling up the _one_ hill on campus towards the library, and Erik had simply come up to his side like this was something they did every day.

“Need help?” he’d asked, and Charles had nodded, sighing gratefully while Erik latched his powers onto Charles’ wheels and propelled him forward into the library, where they’d simply split ways with polite nods.

“I’m surprised, Charles,” Erik had said as they walked out into the hallway together and towards the exit. “Apologist like you, I thought for sure you’d think I was being too harsh.”

Charles gave Erik a sidelong look, not rising to the bait, and Erik’s grin widened. He tried not to think about the way that mouth looked as it curled around his name. “Even I have my limits,” he’d said sagely, and Erik laughed. The memory of it warms Charles even now.

“You’re quiet,” Raven says contemplatively. “What are you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” Charles answers. It’s too light, he knows, as soon as the word leaves his mouth.

“Riiiight,” Raven drawls. “Would this nothing happen to be a certain student? One named… Erik maybe?”

Charles’ stomach flips. “Raven,” he says evenly. “He is my student. I’m not allowed to have thoughts about him.”

“But you have them nonetheless,” Raven finishes for him. “He’s older, you said. Older than you, even. What did you say his birthdate was on the roll sheet?”

“1985,” Charles replies instantly.

“See! Five years older.” Charles shifts uncomfortably on the couch, not quite ready to go where he knows this conversation is going. “You obviously get on well. Do you know how often you’ve _casually mentioned_ him to me?” Raven sing-songs the last part, making it very clear just how transparent Charles has been.

“Okay, but it doesn’t matter anyway,” Charles ploughs on. “He’s still my student. Even if I… even if I was interested, I couldn’t act on it, and rightfully so. It wouldn’t be taking advantage as much as if he were eighteen” - and Charles shudders at the very thought - “but I’m still in a position of authority. I can’t even entertain the notion, Raven, so please don’t let me.”

**************************************************************************

Only his request for Raven gets harder and harder for Charles to follow himself as the semester wears on. A week after that fateful phone conversation with Raven, Charles runs into Erik at the coffee shop near campus on a Saturday, holed up in a corner and surrounded by books and papers, studying for midterm. When he looks up and smiles at Charles over the mountain of schoolwork, Charles knows he’s already lost and begins making his way over to say hi, travel mug clunking against the wheel rim as he navigates. After a second, a familiar tug catches the chair, and he looks up to see Erik’s questioning face. Charles nods and lets go of the rims, letting Erik pull him the rest of the way, coffee no longer in danger of spilling over.

“Hard at work, I see,” he says when reaches the edge of the table.

“Surprised?” Erik asks.

Charles smiles. “Never,” he replies and Erik lets himself grin, too. “How are your other classes looking? Lots of papers? Lots of studying?”

“A paper for English that’s almost done, Calc test, biology test, and then your class,” he says. “It’s more intense than I remember.”

“Yes. But you’ll be all right,” Charles says confidently. “I have a lot of faith in you.”

Erik’s smile fades slightly, and his eyes become more searching. Charles pauses, disarmed, and takes a quick swig of coffee to give himself something to do. When he looks back again, Erik is still watching him consideringly.

“You said we could come into your office hours if we had questions about the midterm,” he says after a moment. “Do you think I should make an appointment?”

Internally, Charles sighs, relieved at being back on familiar ground. “No, that’s fine,” he answers. “I don’t think it’ll be flooded with people. Students usually wait until _after_ they see their midterm grade to start panicking. I’d advise you to just get there early, though, just in case. Three pm sharp on Monday.”

“I’ll be there,” Erik says.

“Good.”

The moment stretches on. Erik is still watching Charles with that considering expression, but his mind is so calm and collected - a far cry from his usual pointed directness - that Charles has no way of knowing what it is he’s thinking. He seems to be waiting for something, though, and Charles finds himself waiting, too, looking at Erik as intently as he’s being looked at.

“Well,” Charles says, surprised to hear how breathless his own voice sounds.

“Do you play chess?” Erik asks abruptly.

Charles is so startled he lets out an involuntary laugh that he hopes doesn’t sound nervous. “Actually, yes I do.”

“Would you care for a game?”

“Aren’t you working?” Charles replies, torn between wanting to stay and not wanting to let himself get carried away.

“I’ve been here since eight,” he says. “I could use a break before my brain starts seeping out of my ears.”

“And chess is a calming study break?” Charles asks, but he’s smiling.

Erik shrugs. “You can say no, if you’re busy.”

Despite his better judgement, Charles shakes his head. “No,” he says, wheeling a little closer to the table. “No, I’m not busy. But you’ll have to move the chair. And your books.”

They play for over an hour, silently at first, then exchanging comments on each other’s strategies (started, of course, by Erik who thinks Charles’ playing is too conservative) and then conversation moves on to reprise some of their less heated debates from class, over mutant education policy and mandatory minimum sentences for harmful acts committed with mutations. By the time Erik topples his King, Charles finds himself almost ready to ask for another game, but dismisses the thought quickly. Erik smiles at him, chagrined.

“I suppose I have to let you win some,” he says.

Charles chuckles. “Your humility is astounding as always,” he says lightly. Erik rolls his eyes. Charles plays with his now empty mug. “That was fun, Erik,” he says. “Thank you.”

“Thank you,” Erik replies. “Probably the last fun I’ll have for a few weeks.”

“Yes,” Charles says, not even trying to hide his wistfulness. “Same here. I should probably let you get back to studying. I’ll see you on Monday, though?”

Erik nods. “See you on, Monday.”

“Until then,” Charles says, waving and turning to head back out into the unseasonably warm October afternoon.

Though Charles spends his entire weekend pointedly telling himself not to look forward to seeing Erik on Monday, by the time 2:55 rolls around that afternoon, he finds himself unable to concentrate on anything productive at all. His stomach is doing somersaults, and he keeps reading the same sentences of the chapter he’s teaching tomorrow over and over without processing anything. Then, a few minutes later, he hears a tentative knock on the door.

“Come in,” he says, brightly, heart jumping in excitement, and he quickly schools his expression into something a bit less expectant as Erik’s head pokes inside. “Erik! Great. Come in, have a seat.”

Erik shoulders into the room, the backpack behind him looking staggeringly heavy, and _sounding_ staggeringly heavy as he drops it off his shoulder and to the floor beside the visitor’s chair. “Hi,” he says a little breathlessly. “I got here early, like you said. I hope that’s still okay.”

“Of course,” Charles says, smiling. “I wouldn’t have told you to come in if it wasn’t. You wanted to talk about the test?”

“Yes,” Erik says, though there’s a tentative tenor to his thoughts for a moment as he pauses. But the thought is gone before Charles can catch it, and Erik reaches into his backpack to take out a notepad. “I spent last night going over the textbook and some articles, and I have a few questions.”

“Fire away,” Charles says. He settles back against his chair and tells himself sternly that he absolutely cannot even think about prying into Erik’s mind to figure out what that thought had been. For a while, their conversation and Erik’s questions serve to distract him almost enough to make him forget that it had even been there.

Then, Erik’s questions peter out until finally he’s merely scanning his notes, biting the inside of his lip as he makes sure he hasn’t forgotten anything. “Okay,” he says quietly. “Thanks.”

He begins tucking his notes back into his bag without looking at Charles, but that tentative thought is back, and as soon as Charles notices it, it’s like trying to look away from a flashing neon sign on a dark night.

“That’s all then, Erik?” he asks. He sounds unsure enough that it makes Erik look up, his expression slightly nervous, much to Charles’ surprise.

“Sort of.” He pauses, his eyes boring into Charles’, then asks abruptly. “Do you have a boyfriend?”

Several emotions crackle through Charles at once, excitement at finding his crush is reciprocated, desire like a bolt of lightning as he realizes that Erik thinks him as attractive Charles does, and then an overwhelming crush of defeat as he remembers that he’s Erik’s teacher. They cannot be having his conversation. All of this must show on his face because Erik’s expression shutters up, just as unreadable as the first day Charles saw him.

“No, Erik, I don’t have a boyfriend,” Charles says slowly. “But you have to know… I’m in a very awkward position.”

“Of course,” Erik says, standing at once, ramrod straight. “I’m sorry for asking. Forget I said anything. I’ll see you tomorrow, Charles.”

“Erik, no, wait, please,” Charles says, reaching across the desk even though Erik is out of his range. Erik pauses. “It’s not- It’s not that I don’t want to, Erik, it’s that I _can’t_ ,” he says quickly. Some of the tension relaxes from Erik’s shoulders, and the frown that had started on his brow and at the corners of his eyes and mouth melts away. “You’re brilliant. And clever and funny and so-” Charles stops himself before he can say something too embarrassing about how attractive he thinks Erik is  “-so lovely.” He settles on. The corners of Erik’s mouth twitch. “But you’re also my student. I know it feels different, but on paper it’s the same, and unfortunately, paper is what counts.”

Erik nods, his jaw clenching just the slightest bit. “I understand. I don’t want your job to be in jeopardy.”

“Thank you,” Charles says. The knot of worry in his chest loosens even as his heart sinks a bit with it. Everything’s out in the open now. They can’t take any of it back.

“What about if I wasn’t your student?” Erik asks, his voice more hopeful than Charles could have ever imagined.

Charles shakes his head. “You can’t switch tutoring sessions this late in the semester. Or classes. And please don’t switch classes on my account, I know you love this subject.”

“That’s not what I meant,” Erik says, coming around to sit again on the edge of the chair. His hand is an inch away from Charles’ on the desk, so near Charles can almost feel the heat radiating out from it. “What about when the semester’s over? I don’t have any poli sci classes in the spring, there’s no chance I’ll get you again as a teacher.”

Charles’ heart thuds impatiently against his ribcage, but he takes a deep steadying breath nonetheless and considers the matter carefully. Erik’s gaze is like a brand on him the whole time, but he doesn’t say anything, doesn’t force it.

“I’ll have to double check the handbook,” Charles says after a moment. “But I don’t think it would be a problem. We might have to be quiet about it at first, though.”

Erik looks pleased as the cat that got the cream. “I can do that,” he says. “End of semester. I can do that.”

Charles smiles, relaxing back into his seat a little. Erik’s hand is still so achingly close. He holds out his own above the desk. “Deal?” he says.

Erik’s grin widens. He takes Charles’ hand, cradling it between both of his own. “Deal,” he says.

**************************************************************************

The next six weeks are absolute torture. Though outwardly class continues in the same, clockwork fashion, inwardly, Charles is hyper-attuned to the way Erik’s eyes follow him, from the moment he enters the room to when they leave, often together now, even more so than he was before their talk. Erik doesn’t hold back in asserting his opinions any more than he did before they confessed their feelings for each other, and his wit is no less scathing when he wants to get a point across to Charles or to anyone else.

What changes is the fondness that radiates out from him in the moments they _do_ agree, or when Charles makes an especially good point that Erik endorses. The feeling is so strong it’s impossible not to catch, so Erik must be projecting, unconscious or not. But he never pushes Charles in their quiet moments walking back outside after class, or when they occasionally cross paths in other parts of campus, and he doesn’t come to any more of Charles’ office hours. In the end, Charles thinks Erik’s affection must be just another matter of fact facet of him, one he’s happy to broadcast in his mind and will be happy to show in his actions as soon as he’s able to. The thought that never fails to make something start to glow bright and hot in Charles’ chest, and he tucks it away for later, when he can prove to Erik just how strongly he feels, too.

The end comes with dragging feet the second week of December. The class final is scheduled for 10am on Tuesday, and Charles spends the whole two hours working his way determinedly through a pile of articles, never looking up once. He doesn’t even know when Erik finishes his test, he’s shielding himself so tightly. At the end of the period when he surfaces, the room is empty save for Dr. Grey and the two other TA’s, Ororo Munroe and Hank McCoy.

“Good work this semester, guys,” Dr. Grey says as she stands and packs up. “I’ll see you for consultations next week. Happy grading.”

“Happy grading,” the three of them echo with varying levels of enthusiasm. Dr. Grey smiles and heads out the door.

“So,” Ororo says, passing Charles the stack of papers from his tutoring block. “A bunch of us were talking about going out tonight for drinks before we have to dig into these. You coming?”

Charles bites his lip, sliding the tests in his bag before slinging it behind him. “Thanks,” he says, “but I’ve got to pass tonight. I need to spend some time on my conference project for February.”

“Fair enough,” she says with a shrug. “We’ll see you soon though?”

“Of course.”

He follows Ororo and Hank as far as the corridor where his office is before saying his goodbyes and turning to go inside, anticipation mounting. He doesn’t know what he’s expecting. He knows Erik isn’t waiting for him - his telepathy tells him that much. Still, it’s more than a little disappointing when he opens the door and Erik isn’t there. Pushing aside his unhappiness, Charles rolls inside and over to his desk, getting out the tests and digging around in a drawer for a marking pen. He’s barely straightened up when he feels a familiar mind making its way down the hallway. He smiles. A second later, there’s a tentative knock on the door.

“Come in,” Charles says, much more calmly than he feels, his pulse beginning to race again.

The door opens, and in steps Erik, white paper sack in hand. “Hi,” he says, stepping quickly into the room and stopping up short just as abruptly. He pauses, just looking at Charles for a moment, a smile twitching uncertainly at the corner of his mouth. “I brought lunch,” he says, holding out the bag. “If you’re hungry.”

“Starving, actually,” Charles says, shoving the tests off to the side to make room on the desk. “Have a seat?”

Erik nods and pulls the visitor’s chair up closer to the other side of Charles’ desk with his powers, setting the bag down on the table. “It’s sandwiches from the deli on the corner,” he says. “I got turkey and corned beef. I’m not picky.”

“Neither am I,” Charles says with a smile, biting his lip. “Thank you, Erik.”

He reaches across the desk and gives Erik’s arm a quick squeeze, and when he lets his touch linger, and when Erik moves to brush his own fingers across the back of Charles’ hand, Charles feels an already familiar warmth seeping into him, not just from the touch itself, but from Erik’s mind. Slowly, Erik leans across the desk. Reeled in like a moth to a flame, Charles leans in too until they’re sharing one breath, two, and then Charles bridges that final gap to kiss Erik slow, open-mouthed, and sweet. When they pull apart, they’re both smiling, and Charles feels his insides dance at the softness in Erik’s beautiful blue-grey eyes.

It’s a look that’s still there later that night when they’re curled together in Charles’ bed, warm and sleepy and sated, Erik’s fingers bumping gently up and down the notches in Charles’ spine.

“I’ve never been happier for a final to be over,” he says, smiling softly. 

Charles laughs, dipping in to give him another kiss, the brightness in his own mind spiraling out to meet the brightness in Erik’s.

“Me either.”


End file.
